


Dead Space - Zenith

by Jukingbox



Category: Dead Space (Video Games), Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Horror, Body Horror, Crossover, Gen, Good versus Evil, Horror, Psychological Horror, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2020-09-02 00:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20266693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jukingbox/pseuds/Jukingbox
Summary: "It's happening again... everyone is dying around me."So many years of life wasted, bathed in blood, madness, and misery. So much taken from him - his loved ones, his sanity, his livelihood - by evils both unfathomable and familiar. In one instant it all seemed to be over. One grand gamble ends up paying off, and all that ever preyed on him through the toil and tribulation and grisly insanity seemed to be gone forever.For Isaac Clarke however, it could never be that easy. By forces no one yet understands, he finds himself in a new reality. A new Earth. A new Milky way. A whole new universe, a counterpart to everything he once knew, now full of its own share of deadly threats and looming danger. For Isaac, there is no telling what lays around the corner......but for Commander Shepard, the Normandy, the trillions of lives in the Milky Way Galaxy, and Reapers who plan to wipe them all out, things have gotten very, very interesting.





	1. Stranded

**Author's Note:**

> \- foreword -  
This is a a rewrite of a work I did impromptu for a bunch of people i didn't even know. It was haphazard, shoddy, poorly written, poorly structured, completely improvised on the spot as I typed in each chapter, and it was some of the most fun I've ever had. It was my first serious attempt at writing, and over the years, I've felt a need to revisit it. As devoid of substance as it is, I feel it deserves a second chance. This little body of work has a special place in my heart. As silly as it is, as contrived as the premise may be, and as stupid of a notion as it was to even so much as entertain the idea in the first place, it has a place in the library of my life, sitting on the shelf where my guilty pleasures and funny memories share space.
> 
> For what it's worth, I hope I can do it justice, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it - again.
> 
> To everyone who was with me the first time around, I owe it all to you. I don't know if any of you will ever find this otherwise unremarkable blurb floating in the vast ether of the internet's unending sea of garbage, but if we were able to find each other on an island on that sea of trash, I have no doubt at least some of you will find this little nugget. This one's for you, you crazy bastards.
> 
> \- Your old pal, Jukebox

An unending cacophony of roaring wind and hideous alien screams assailed his ears, drawing blood from within that froze in the stinging air and clung to his skin. The stone under him continued to send pulses of some unknown power through his frame, tearing at his nerves like claws on fabric. He fought against it, but blood from his bruised stomach spewed through his esophagus and out of his mouth, some of it going back down and back out as it attempted entry into his lungs. Feverish, bright green light pierced his eyes and added to his headache, splitting his pulsating temples. He felt they would burst as he shambled forward, the machine colliding with his platform and nearly sending him to his knees.

_Almost done…_

The bind between the rocks came loose. His footing disappeared from underneath him. His arms strained, struggling to root him against the winds vying to take him into the maelstrom beneath him. For a moment his eyes considered them, looking down at the flesh and stone and debris.

“Come on…”

Isaac felt Carver’s hand hoisting him up. His shoulder cuff felt like it would give out under his own weight. The light got brighter, and both Isaac and John’s eyes struggled to adjust. Not that it registered consciously – there was a numbness overshadowing their minds. They knew what was about to happen next.

"So this is it huh? We use that Codex?"

"Yeah" Isaac replied

"No more bullshit… We die here? Now?"

"And earth... gets a tomorrow."

Without another word, Isaac laid his hands on the codex and twisted it counterclockwise. It emitted that familiar droning call as it moved, sounding in a great thump as it reached its peak. The resulting shockwave tore both Carver and Isaac away from the receptacle. Carver held on to a broken outer ridge of the machine before the resulting turbulence, brought on the by the machine finishing off the great monster within whom they were imprisoned, sucked him into the air and out of view. The pull overpowered the engineer, and Isaac soon followed suit.

As he tumbled through the icy, debris ridden air, everything seemed to go silent. The freezing wind whipped him about and the moon screamed out in its death throes, but it all faded into nothing as he pulled out his picture of Ellie and looked at it longingly for one last time. Sounds of his life flashing were passing by his ears. His eyes were too engrossed. The picture fluttered away, and he shut them, accepting his fate.

Any second now...

He could still feel the freezing air and powdered snow mingled with dirt. The sounds of whipping wind and cracking stone still lashed against his eardrums.

He was not dead yet. Something was wrong.

Anticipation of death gave way to confusion. Surely something should have hit him - some piece of the Volantis facility or a space rock would have put him out of his misery by now. Against his better judgement, he reopened his eyes only to be met with blinding green light. It was the machine no doubt, but its purposes remained elusive. His fall seemed to be slowing, yet that stirring, queasy feeling one gets in their gut during a free fall seemed to be steepening. The green gave way to white as the light intensified, and even with his hands covering his face, he could not block it out. It seeped past his fingers like thick grease enveloping his bones. He retracted his hands only to see a similar phenomenon enclosing his whole being. Momentary fright gave way to an immediate mental and physical paralysis, lasting but for a few frenzied moments before oblivion set in.

The oblivion was not blackness however. It was not sleep. Isaac's consciousness was very much awake, but could find no trace of his body. None of his senses were giving feedback. Had he died? Isaac thought to himself. He pondered for a while, taking in the momentousness of what he thought was death.

_So this is it_, he thought. _It's all over. Everything's over. It's done._

it didn't take long before there was an odd conflict of peace and unease swirling in his mind. His troubles had finally left him but now what? Was he just consciousness floating through the cosmos forever? What was he anymore? Was he ever going to see anyone ever again or feel another's embrace or hear another's voice? There was no precedent he could turn to. No religious doctrine he had heard of could answer the maddening questions in his troubled mind. All at once they came to horrify him, and the very idea experiencing thought without stimulus immediately began to drive him mad - conscious, but unable to experience consciousness, trapped in his own mind in an endless ether of nothing with only his own thoughts to keep him company. Isaac's fear swelled exponentially. At this point he did not even know how long he had been like this. Panic set in and refused to let go. Time became hard to perceive. There was no ticking clock, no setting sun, nothing he could process as landmarks to the steady march of time. Seconds and years were one and the same. It paralyzed him

It wasn't too much longer (or at least, it didn't feel too much longer) until returning sense came back to Isaac's rescue. Slowly but surely, dark blotches began to permeate the whiteout. There was vision. That much was coming back. Everything was still silent, and he couldn't touch or move anything, but this was a start. The return of his cognition gave him relief, but he still lay helpless, unable to move. Everything was still hazy. Only dull outlines persisted for the longest time. Isaac's initial gladness began to grow more and more into frustrated anxiety. It felt like the deepest sleep paralysis had taken hold of him. He could feel his heart racing and his breathing feebly trying to gain in volume and speed with only marginal, maddeningly small gains. The longer he lay here, the more likely he was to find he was entertaining company. Years of paranoia about necromorphs and Earthgov and unitologists had instilled that wariness into his mind like solder.

Finally, he could hear something. Waves. Sand blowing past and into his ears, and the reverberating sound of the wind carrying it. It was irritating, but he could not be more relieved to feel that irritation. He felt the sand scraping his eardrums and wanted to pick it out, making his fingers twitch.

There it was. He could finally move, even if just a little. _Just keep twitching_, he thought. _Keep twitching until more things start moving._ Soon enough, his wrist felt mobile again. He could move his hands, and with them, feel more of that same coarse sand that had been harassing his ears and face. Now his arms could move. Motor control was coming back faster and faster, vision clearing with it at the same pace. His core and legs felt dead, as if their blood flow had been constricted and freed. It tingled enough to actually sting a little, subsiding more and more until he could move them enough to put them under himself. Now he could smell something. An odd cocktail of salty air and burning trash. it only drove him all the more to get up, to see where he was, to get his bearings and know just what the _hell_ had happened to him.

Shuffling back up felt herculean, and he fell to his knees as he made a vain attempt to stand upright. His vision remained blurry, but he could start to make out the scene around him. The smell and glow of numerous fires of burning metal, rubber, paint, and plastic, mingling with cool and crisp air, warmed by ample sunlight. There was no snow blanketing the ground, nor the sting of an icy wind on his bare face. Wherever this was, it most likely wasn't Tau Volantis.

His vision cleared fully with a little more rubbing, and the scenery was all at once a confirmation and a refuting of what he pictured. There were green trees and beautiful waves ahead of him. The foam on the seashore frothed up as continuous gentle waves made their way ashore. What looked to be palm fronds bristled gently in a cool breeze. In stark contrast to the paradisaical scene was a scattering of ship debris. Some unitologist, most Sovereign Colony warships. Their remains shared the landscape with the wildlife and scenery in an ugly, burning mess. Isaac began to wonder if it maybe still was Tau Volantis. After all, the machine's purpose was to freeze the planet and prevent the Moon from consuming any further before delivering some sort of coup de grace. Maybe he's been asleep for longer than he thought. Maybe this is what the planet looked like before. Maybe it was back to some supposed exotic original state.

Whatever the case, the past seemed less and less important than the present as Isaac remembered his current circumstances. He had no idea where Ellie or Carver were, or if they were even alive. Isaac frantically tapped his comms, calling out for them.

"Carver? Carver?! Carver, come in! C'mon man, you gotta talk to me! Carver? CARVER!!" No answer. Just static. Isaac began to worry. He opened up RIGlink and found that Carver's RIG was no longer in sync with his. No way to tell if he flat-lined. Ellie's RIG was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she just shocked out, or perhaps she did so just as the Brother Moon was waking up. Futile as he knew it was, Isaac tapped into his comms again trying to make contact.

"Ellie? Ellie are you there?**_*shit*_** Ellie, do you hear me?! ELLIE?! **DAMMIT!!**"

Isaac cursed under his breath. He was alone. He had no idea where he was or how he got there or how long he had been there.

There was at least one thing easing his mounting frustration: there wasn't a single necromorph corpse in sight, and the Brethren moons were certainly (or at least hopefully) out of the picture. This gave way to some more worrisome questions, such as why exactly there was no trace of necromorph infestation, but Isaac buried them under an emerging sense of urgency.

There were several things he needed at the moment more than circumstantial information: Food, Water, sleep, and rescue. Food wasn't too hard to find. All around him for at least a few miles lay the ruins of the Sovereign colonies fleet and Danik's Unitologist outfit. Centuries old SC rations were out of the question, but Danik and his zealots certainly didn't come to kill Isaac and his friends starving. There had to be some of those shuttles laying around here somewhere. Through shaky steps, he sauntered about the beach, taking in the scope of the wreckage. There must have been the remains of at least thirty or forty vessels here.

Only bits and pieces of Danik's gunships. Isaac's worries nearly reached a peak before he finally found a seemingly whole vessel. The locks weren't working, and the pneumatic actuators keeping it shut seemed damaged enough by some sort of perforation to the hull housing them to make it easy to break into with enough elbow grease. it didn't take long to find the victuals he needed. He noticed that though the vessel was by no means spaceworthy, it seemed relatively intact for having hit the planet on re-entry. Something about that raised the hairs on the back and sides of his neck. Something was _not_ right about that.

He stepped outside to examine the wreck closer, noticing that there was little damage on the re-entry plating at the front of the vehicle, where ionized plasma would have burnt it black or even torn it all away without proper control. He walked to the back of the ship, slowing his step, as if whatever he would see would jump out at him. It wouldn't, but the sight was a shock to his system regardless. No trails of upturned dirt or flora at the stern of the ship. Only a little soil clung to the port and starboard bulkheads. it didn't add up.

It didn't take long for Isaac's eyes to examine the other nearby wrecks. With their size, he didn't have to get close. They were all the same. Mostly intact. Re-entry plating practically untouched. The ground relatively pristine and devoid of indentation.

None of the wrecks had left a wake.

It struck Isaac odd, even a little paranoid. Once again, Isaac ignored his underlying fears and buried them under what he deemed to be more pressing matters.

Sleep could wait until he knew where he was, or where he could make contact with someone friendly. He rushed back inside and rummaged through the ship's trashed helm in search of the comms equipment. Ship's power was completely shot, but it wasn't anything Isaac couldn't fix. He went astern to find the ship's power core was quite intact. Far too intact for a normal re-entry crash. _Too perfect. it should be a mess of burnt scrap at best...._ He buried the thought.

Getting the ship's power back on was a pain, but nothing he hadn't done before. The onboard computer was still on. _No, that's not right. It shouldn't be working. None of this should be working..._ Isaac had to shake his head. He needed to focus. He was familiar enough with the software that he knew how to get root-level access and get power on without tripping any failsafes. The same computers were used on CEC ships. _Figures. Just as many Uni assholes in the company anyway..._

The process from start to finish took only a few minutes. Every monitor on the helmsman's dash had started back up and booting screens were flashing. Emergency lights had come on in the cabin. There was power. it was weak, it needed further system checks to ensure safety and reliable operation, but there was power.

Of course, it was by no means flightworthy, but at least the lights were on, and that meant Isaac could start broadcasting. He wasted no time. The unitologists had only so many contacts. They had kept their militant arm well concealed before they launched their first attack about a month before the incident on Luna, and having everyone on your contact list wouldn't be prudent. Isaac uploaded the contacts on his RIG onto the Ship's mainframe. Without hesitation, he got to work on a distress beacon. He brought up the ship's nav and comms systems. They had no satellites to correspond to, so no specific latitude or longitude, but he could settle for planetary coordinates and have the inevitable rescue party pinpoint his location via tracing the broadcast. Logging Tau Volantis' coordinates to his RIG, he set to work.

His own RIG was battered - the helmet busted and ultimately missing, the armor plating compromised, and the kinesis module's heat sink burned out, but the CPU still worked well enough to bring up the interface, though with some obvious damage to the graphics driver and holo display. Recording still worked. That was all he needed for now. He prefaced the recording with the standard Morse signal and his own coordinates, then began recording.

"To anyone on this frequency, this is Isaac Clarke, Concordance Extraction Company. I am currently stranded at the coordinates you have received at the beginning of this broadcast. Flora and fauna are present and unknown. Surface coordinates unknown. Distance to comm relay, unknown. No spaceworthy vessels accessible. If anyone is out there, please. I don't know how long I can hold out here."

He couldn't think of anything else. It didn't need to be poetic anyway. He bookended the message with the Morse signal again, saved it, and sent it through the broadcast array.

Now all he had to do was wait.

Idleness gave way to curiosity. His immediate needs and plans had been addressed. Now his situation came into the forefront. Now it was important.

And now, it was confusing Isaac to the point of paranoia.

This place was was alive. Far more alive than the Earth he called home and far more convincing than the simulated skies and filtered pools he had seen in what few resorts and hotels he was able to bring Nicole and later Ellie to. The smoke and burnt ceramic and steel were white noise to him. From multiple junking operations early in his career, to the everyday tedium of upkeeping a mining vessel, he knew these as well as his own scent. He could block it out. What he couldn't block out was the vegetation. The sight of green, seemingly naturally grown leaves, coupled with a scent Isaac had only experienced whenever he was called to fix something in hydroponics. The salt in the air was also new and alarming. Earth's oceans smelled like trash. Like bile and grease and plastic. Any hint of salt had been overcome centuries ago.

Unable to keep himself away any longer, he strode away from the smoking heaps of the ruined ships, hiking a bit up the coast until they were out of sight. He took in the magnificent vistas before him: sheer black, igneous cliffs overhanging white sand and perfectly blue water, lush and lively jungles adorning their tops. Fauna seemed to be in abundance: he could see all sorts of seabirds and wading birds flying through the air and fishing through the tide pools, wherein swam a plethora of small fish and crustaceans. It floored him. Plants were one thing, as they were a necessity to hydropnics, but animals? ones that were alive? Wild? Born naturally and not in-vitro? They looked nothing like anything he had seen in a containment unit on earth, or in those grainy old videologs of extinct earth life. All at once he was torn between rushing up to get a closer look, and staying back in fear of them.

Eventually Isaac let his frantic mind slow down. He waded around in the surf, staying dry with his suit and examining the various little creatures that swam around the shallows. Life like this had been absent on earth for centuries. All the sand on even the cleanest, most tidied up tourist traps was nothing more than sterilized gravel. He observed the birds wading next to him and flying above him. Some appeared more reptilian than avian, but this did not detract from their beauty. They were arrayed in all sorts of vibrant, lively colors, flashing them as they flapped their wings, changed expression, or shooed a curious Isaac away with a defensive pose and a hiss. Isaac didn't feel threatened so much as he felt amazed and somewhat amused. He had never actually interacted with any kind of real, living animal in his life. He had never seen bodies of water this clean looking before, nor did he ever see such blue skies (smoke from the wreckage notwithstanding) in his nearly fifty years of living.

It was all doing a very good job at hushing his fears and apprehensions regarding his circumstances, and soon enough all his paranoid theories and postulations were, at least for the moment, put to rest. Stepping back onto the shore for a bit, he found some shade under a shore tree and sat down, enjoying the weather. Everything seemed serene for once. Even before his most recent and harrowing adventure with the markers, his life was calm but nowhere near serene. Hopelessness and poverty and filth marked life on Earth's moon. Even before their relationships hit the rocks, life with Ellie there wasn't all too easy. Here, there was peace, tranquility, and perhaps even a chance of obtaining rest. Realizing this, he almost involuntarily lay all the way down, his back resting in a bowl shaped by the tree's ample root system. It was no soft bed, but it was so much better than what he had been through these past three days. With that in mind, Isaac found it surprisingly easy to find sleep.

_______________________________________

_>Personal log: Day two._

_>Still no response to the beacon. I don't understand. It's running on every frequency. I've got to REALLY be out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere for no one to hear me Maybe I really am too far out. Maybe someone's already on their way. Who knows? Someone's has to pick me up sooner or later. This place isn't too bad to tell the honest truth. It's beautiful. It almost makes me not want to get rescued. People see all this and they'll strip it to the ground. Maybe me and Ellie can keep it to ourselves. Fat chance. Wonder what everyone is doing. Are they looking for me? Is anyone looking for me? Might as well cool it here and find out_

_>Day three_

_>Did some tinkering around with some of the vessels strewn around the beach. None are spaceworthy and the most intact one is going to take a long-ass time to fix. All by myself, it'll probably take a few years, three at least. I REALLY hope someone gets to me before I have to do that. Least it'll give me something to do. Place is practically my own personal junkyard. Parts everywhere, Shame it's such an ugly mess._

_>Went out into the jungle behind the wreckage today. Crazy things around here. Bugs the size of my forearm crawling on me. Gross. Pretty amazing, but gross Some sort of primate-like herd species from the canopy came at me in a rush. Got to be sure to not enter their territory. They stopped a few yards away, but I would've been pulp if I got any closer. The flora's pretty crazy too. So much of it glows. Blue seems predominant. Not sure why. Probably some chemical in the soil or something. Either way some of it looks promising. Might as well decorate while I'm here, right? Never been much of a gardener, but hey, it's a little nicer being surrounded by glowing blue plants rather than piles of space junk. Not that space junk is anything new to me, but it's nice to have a little change of scenery. Christ, I'm starting to personalize this place. Might go native before someone picks me up._

_>Day six_

_>Re-did the beacon to make sure it was broadcasting alright. Everything looks fine. Why the hell hasn't anyone shown up yet? I must be REALLY far out there. Guess that figures. No one's ever seen anything like this and we'd be rushing here in a hurry if it was ever revealed. By the time I got here the skies would be grey._

_>I'm starting to think If I'm gonna get rescued, it's going to take a while. Weeks. Maybe months. God forbid years._

_>Day ten._

_>Unitologist rations are about a quarter of the way through. Had to start experimenting with local fauna and flora. Dangerous game. Threw up twice today on bad berries. Blues and reds are no good. Greens are tart as shit, but they'll do. The only real expeditionary equipment I can find has been on the SC ships. It's all primitive and half of it went to rotting or rusted crap long before I found it, let alone after the crash. I've found some that claim to be able to break apart potential foodstuffs and discern edibility. It's old and broke but I think I can fix it Some of those fish look good_

_>day seventeen_

_>Two days of the runs does a man no good. Never laying a finger on those green berries again. Water evaporation rig is working great. Got lots of water to drink and lots of salt to use for seasoning. Starting to officially feel like a castaway, albeit a relatively comfortable castaway. That is, unless some shitty fruit gives me double headed dragon. Never again. Some of the fish tastes great. Not that I have the best frame of reference. It's some of the only organic meat I've had in years. I was worried when I saw I took a huge hit on supplies after the first few bouts of barfing, but I think I'll be alright. Even if I never touch it again, It'll last at least another six years. Chances are it probably won't. Some of this native stuff is just too good._

_>day twenty_

_Have to keep this brief. Found Necromorph remains on some of the SC ships. It's sludge now. It can't hurt anything, but I have to be sure. Find a torch, fuel, anything that can burn this all away. Even if all this shit is dead forever, it doesn't hurt to be sure. _

_>day twenty-two_

_Nothing. No activity from the sludge. just rotting meat and bones. Nothing more. Not much else to say. A little disturbed at how no bugs are eating it. Fungal growth seems to be taking root, so that's a start. Don't feel like dwelling on it any further._

_>day twenty-eight_

_>This wild ride just might be at an end, or at least I hope it will. Heard some static over the comms receiver. Lasted a good five minutes. Probably shat half a brick house in that time. No clear voices, just static. All I know is that it was received or responded to by some outside source. It wasn't the system going awry. It wasn't another one of those damn monkeys playing around on the ship. Someone out there actually heard me. Had to get ready. they could be here by tomorrow if they intend to pick me up. Dusted off and repaired the suit as best I could and put it back on. Lots of spare parts available on the SC ships. My days of board-washing secondhand clothes from the SC and the unitologists over an old comms array heat-sink are over. Shame. Think Ellie might like some of it. She's always picked at the fact that I like to wear baggy stuff. Some of this stuff's tight. I really look forward to seeing her again._

_>be seeing you soon, Ellie_

_>END LOG_


	2. Pickup

Isaac wandered around the wilds just outside of his camp, observing the wildlife. He was back in his suit, newly built plasma cutter at his hip. His helmet was down and his eyes closed as he took in the scenery for presumably the last time.

"I might actually miss this place" he said to himself as he ventured further into the wilds. He knew this locale in particular. It was a place he resorted to when he got too stressed or when thoughts of home or a new life made him anxious. A little handmade sign crafted by Isaac pointed to it reading 'Take a load off.'

A series of cascading waterfalls sung along the rocks above and into a fairly large pool below, surrounded by flowing blue and teal flora. The rock that the cascade ended in hung over the pool considerably, and there was enough dry land behind it for Isaac to set up shop: A fridge powered by some solar arrays he hung up in the trees, a TV loaded with some pirated re-runs of his favorite shows (courtesy of a few apostate zealots who apparently had some good taste), and a tunnel that led underground into a "shooting range" set up with a single chair and table, loaded with some spare ammo.

Downrange were some sizeable leaves Isaac used as targets, strung up by vines adorning the rocks. Light poured in from a large open fissure in the cave ceiling. A rope ladder was hung on it from without, leading to an even more spacious enclave than the first. The brook that supplied the cascade flowed through a large stony creek that wound throughout a garden lush with life. The jungle canopy was open, forming a large aerial perimeter around the clearing. Flowers bloomed and birds and other exotic animals wandered and flew about. Several large stones dotted the garden, the very largest dividing the creek around it and sitting in the middle of the garden. It was formed of several layers of stone, with obvious bands of black volcanic rock making intermittent appearances. It was worn, partly by nature and partly by Isaac, to resemble steps. Isaac would often resort to these steps and sit down, overlooking the garden from all directions at the top, using what time he had to relax and meditate.

Right now, Isaac had at least one more time to sit atop here in this tranquil setting and gather his thoughts. Rescue is likely on the way. Now what to do? Nothing left of the Marker threat - melting necromorphic remains rotted inside the hulls of the SC ships, decaying into topsoil without a marker signal. Earthgov and Unitology were most likely no more. The mess he was in with his apartment and shabby life had been left completely behind. There were some possessions he'd miss, but not too greatly. As far as he was concerned, that life had passed away. Now to rebuild. Just where would he start? He had his engineering degree still. It certainly would not be impossible to find good work as long as it wasn't on the Moon. Ellie was no longer a stranger. For once, Isaac's outlook on life looked quite positive.

It was all too entrapping. So much so that he failed to pay attention to the faint sound of ship engines screaming faintly in the distance.

The sonic boom of several ships on re-entry escaped him at first, but short-term memory wriggled its way into his mind and peaceful thoughts began to deteriorate. Now Isaac heard commotion coming from his camp. Men shouting, ship engines whirring, and wildlife stirring.

As Isaac approached, he could hear them more clearly. Their tone of voice did not sound like a rescue team. He heard no mentions of his name, knowing that he broadcasted it in his distress signal. All he heard were calls of

‘SEARCH THE CAMPS!'

'SEARCH THE RUBBLE!'

'FIND ANYTHING?'

'IS THERE ANYONE HERE?'

'ANY SURVIVORS?’

All melded with what sounded like the bolts of several firearms being locked into battery. That didn't sound good. Sure, they were looking for survivors. It didn't mean they intended to let them stay survivors.

Isaac swore between gritted teeth, activated his helmet and loaded his plasma cutter. He crouched behind a bush and watched them there. They were a way off, making it hard to make out details, but sure enough, there they were, searching around the wreckage with rifles in hand. Some had theirs slung over their shoulder or entrusted to a comrade as they went to rummage around the half-destroyed hulks. He could see some of them scurrying off to a medium sized ship to drop off their loot.

_Well how fucking nice. Armed and sticky fingered._

Isaac was partly afraid of how an armed conflict would fall quickly to his demise and partly angry at the small horde of armed thieves taking all of those things that had kept him alive all this time. So many parts he had lined up to fix the uni ship, so much food, and so many weapons were being toted away by armed guard into that ship. The way Isaac saw it there were three courses of action to take. One: rush in guns blazing and get shot to death; two, hide until they're done pillaging and let them take away every lifeline he's so carefully constructed to keep himself afloat; or three, sneak on board the ship, stow away, then start his life over.

The decision was natural.

He crept closer and closer to the camp, avoiding and hiding from what he perceived to be pursuers. As he got closer to them, he started to notice some details that didn't seem quite right: none of their faces were visible, all hidden behind some sort of opaque visor, some with hoods covering them.

They all seemed to display tall, slender figures with _oddly bent knees._

_What the hell..._

Isaac's head started to reel, and it took a lot of mental fortitude to keep thousands of partially developed implications from flooding his mind.

There was no marker insignia to be seen, so they couldn't have been unitologist. They couldn't have been EarthGov. Hoods and masks didn't seem to be the usual fare for E-Gov uniforms. As he approached their main ship (there was a shuttle parked adjacent to it), he got to take a closer look at one of them in particular.

This one was likely female, judging by her more supple, lithe figure. She held her rifle over her shoulder, hip slanted with the other hand planted firmly thereon. She shifted somewhat to make herself more comfortable, as it seems this was her post and guard duty was seldom an entertaining experience, evidenced by her occasional sigh. Isaac eyed her firearm. It was like no gun he had ever seen before. It was large and angular with a fixed stock and red, grey, and black paint. The receiver looked bisected in front where a barrel and what looked almost like a long-stroke gas piston came out of the top and bottom partitions respectively. Isaac's eyes stopped cold when they traced the weapon back to the hand that held it.

_Three fingers?!_

He looked down past her oddly angled knees and saw that her feet had two toes shaped into a form fitting boot. She turned somewhat, but didn't notice him, giving him a chance to see one of their visors up close. He couldn't make out many features under the opaque visor save for two ominously glowing eyes.

Isaac retreated back into his cover of beach flora. His eyes began to widen and a cold sweat started to form atop his brow.

There were a million possibilities, but they were all quickly narrowing down, and the apparent winner was almost too much to believe. The notion of sapient life existing elsewhere other than earth almost would have sent Isaac into a panic if it weren't for his experience with with old natives of Tau Volantis. Still though, the prospect of being in contact with living aliens was frightening enough to paralyze him, even if for just a moment. Regaining his composure well enough to maintain a level head was hard, but not impossible.

He turned his attention back to the guard. Apparently, she wasn't the grunt he thought she was, as another one of them came up to her and addressed her as ‘captain.’ Interesting. Looks like she wasn't on guard so much as she was supervising. As Isaac eavesdropped on them only more feverish questions began to whirl around in his head.

"Captain Verei, we think this guy's still here. Found some audio-playback logs with a scruffy-looking human on the screen. Looks like he's been stranded here for a while."

"He seem like he wants to fight?"

"No ma'am"

"Well tell everyone to put a holster on it like I said or he's gonna think we're out for blood. Any other traces of him?"

"Freshest thing is a plate of some native fish he didn't finish over by his water filter."

"Well, just have everyone chill for a minute. Yeah, this place is loaded with stuff that'll help the fleet, but it can wait until we actually find this guy. Look, I'll take you and Sgt Zarau and we'll go looking for him. Tell everyone else to head back onboard."

"Isn't that Admiral Xen's order to gi-?"

"That's an order and I'm giving it. Xen's horseshit is just going to scare him off. The tech can wait until later. It's not going anywhere. Admiral Gerrel made sure the Asari already have their share. This is ours."

Isaac was intrigued but nonetheless cautious. So they knew he was here and they were out to find him. Interesting no one said 'rescued.' Still though, they didn't want to look like a threat to him. Whether that was a gesture of friendliness or of deception he couldn't tell. Isaac approached the alien woman, tiptoeing and hiding behind crates of his own tech these creatures had scrounged up, the sand and sounds of the surf masking his steel-toed footsteps.

He finally got so close he could almost reach out and touch her. His curiosity, fueled on by a mix of fear and bewilderment, soon found itself overshadowed by another observation: she was standing next to an open hatch. There was his ticket in. Slipping quietly behind her and the hatch, he almost had a heart attack as she turned around, thinking she would see him. Luckily, she only turned halfway, walking toward her new search party as the rest of the crew made their way back to the ship. That still wasn't good. They were heading right for the open drop-down hatch Isaac was standing by and they would see him any second. Taking advantage of the sound of crashing waves and the others' partial preoccupation with the scrap, Isaac quickly sneaked inside.

The hatch led into what looked like an atrium, leading into three main partitions: Straight ahead lead into the cargo bay, while the one on the left led to crew’s quarters, logistics, and captain's quarters. both side passageways led back up into the cockpit. Isaac had no interest in anywhere he couldn't easily hide. He chose the cargo bay, almost forgetting what the returning aliens were doing with his tech. It was better than the crew quarters or helm, however. Rushing inside, he found an empty crate to hide in. It was grated on one side, allowing him to observe the aliens coming into the bay quickly behind him. He dimmed the lights on his helmet and RIG to avoid detection as they stacked their newfound treasures around the bay and made small talk among themselves.

"Man, look at half of this stuff. You ever seen a suit like this?" said one as he pulled out an old Arctic Survival Suit from a crate.

"I know right? Where do you think it all came from? I've never seen the humans dress in anything like this before."

"Yeah, and I've never seen them pilot ships like these. I served on a human cruise liner on pilgrimage. This looks nothing like that"

"And did you notice some were a little older?" piped up another with an armful of what looked like a random assortment of junk from one of the SC vessels. "I mean, I got this stuff out of the huge hulk in the back. Paint was chipped off, everything was rusted, space radiation damage all over the hull, and the air inside tasted like dirt. It feels like no one's been in these ships for a very long time."

"You saw the ones with the twisted insignia amidships? I scouted a few. They look right off the factory line."

Suddenly the first one got a call, and his arm was soon enveloped in some sort of orange holographic light.

"Yeah? You found what? Wait... are you serious? Wait hold on… Okay... yes ma'am we'll be right there."

The holographic display disappeared, the alien activated his weapon and made a rush for the door calling his comrades. "Everyone, we need to head back out and make sure they get back safely. We're getting out of here **NOW**."

"What for?"

"They found human remains in those older ships."

"Oh boy..." Isaac muttered. When he checked the ships for necromorphic infestation, all he found were moldering piles of sludge and traces of skeletal remains. There was nothing on board those ships capable of hurting anyone anymore, but he could understand an ignorant observer's horror at finding it. As the others scurried out, Isaac saw a brief opportunity to check out his surroundings and snoop around. He was no longer bent on petty revenge. Caution and curiosity had overshadowed it. He slipped out of his crate and snuck into the other parts of the ship, hoping he would have enough time before the others rallied.

He started with the engine room, examining the alien vessel's means of propulsion. He was unable to identify most of it, though by context he could tell which stuffing tubes, if dismantled, would do the most damage. He could also tell, to his confusion, that the ship had no shockdrive. How did it reach him? As if Isaac didn't already have enough questions raging in his head, even more were starting to run loose in his crowded psyche. Leaving the engine room for a bit, he wandered into the crew’s quarters and eventually to the helm. The controls weren't too horribly different. He recognized a joystick and several panels indicating the status of several different systems. Most of what he was looking at however, was completely foreign. He looked out the helm into the ocean, trying to gather some of his thoughts one more time. All his plans of reconstructing his life were, at least for the moment, on hold until he could get a grip on just what in the world was happening. Aliens? ‘What the humans usually pilot’? Admirals?

Isaac put both hands on the helmsman's console, staring straight ahead, forgetting just how long he had spent out of hiding. Suddenly, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he saw a shadow behind him raising a weapon behind his head and priming the bolt.

"Hands up. Now."

There really was nothing he could do but raise his arms in submission. He wasn't close enough to her to turn around and grab the muzzle of her weapon, and more of her subordinates were stacking up behind her, rifles shouldered and trained on him. He turned around slowly and deliberately, prepared to take a pistol whip on the head or gut. Such a blow never came, but the captain was no less stern, and Isaac's gut remained tense. "Were you the one who sent out that distress signal?"

“Yeah, that was me."

"Anyone else with you?"

"No."

"Care to explain all these ships and the human bones we found in them?"

"Yeah..."

"And the - hey hold on now..." the female said, kind of perplexed at Isaac's behavior. He wasn't as afraid as he was before. Now he was face to face with the alien leader, and her extraterrestrial grandeur had completely overshadowed his caution and replaced it with wonder and fascination. She slowly lowered her weapon, though she didn't holster it, as she had no idea what to expect out of the armor clad, armed man in front of her who now seemed to be walking closer to her with no apparent hostility.

"Are you." Isaac stammered "Are you human?"

"Uh... no sir." She replied. "You couldn't see that?"

"No, I... how did..." Isaac's mind fumbled over itself trying to make out what he should say next. He's face-to-face with an alien. She's got a gun to his face, but she's not confrontational or at least inflammatory. "What... what are you?" he said, halting his advance for just a moment.

"Quarian. What did you think I was?"

"I... how long has there been others?"

A million things were suddenly swarming in the Captain's head, trying to form into proper questions. The ships, crashed but without any wake, the rotten meat-sludge in the older hulks, the age discrepancies between vessels, and now a human who's never even heard of other species. it took some self-restraint to refrain from a deluge of inquiry. Answers would come one way or another. Right now, there were a few more pressing things to attend to. 

Names, first of all.

"...What is your name?"

"Isaac Clarke... Yours?"

"I'm Captain Nezala Verei of the Migrant Fleet Marines." she replied. "Do you have any intent of harming personnel or property here?"

"No."

"Alright. Care to tell me the story behind your little junkyard?"

"it's a very long one."

"How did you get here?"

"…I'm still not sure yet."

The picture was vague. Nezala didn't have much to work with. He appeared to not have much more information than she did on the situation. She holstered her weapon and signaled her subordinates to do likewise. Just as she was wondering what else she should say, the engineer approached her again. His helmet disassembled in a loud hiss that got everyone's weapons back into the pockets of their shoulders. It disassembled like clockwork, piling down into compartments at the front and back of his suit. Nezala flinched at first, then paid full attention to the haggard, sunken eyed man in front of her. His grey, tired eyes were wide with wonder and curiosity.

"So you're not human..."

"Yeah, I kinda thought that had been established"

"Well it's a first to me. I mean..." Isaac cut himself short, getting even closer to her, making her a bit uncomfortable. her hand hesitated around her shoulder as Isaac reached out to her. "You..."

He touched her visor tracing around her helmet and the red hood that adorned it. He looked deep into her ominous glowing eyes, not noticing the perplexed expression on the brow. He examined her suit from head to toe with his eyes, and with his hands he continued to probe her suit, holding up her arm and feeling the armor panels on her forearm. He traced her wrist out to her three-fingered hand, opening his palm. She opened hers almost as if on instinct, placing her palm against his. Her hand was smaller, and three fingers found difficulty meshing with his five. Nonetheless, he clasped his fingers around her hand, and she reluctantly followed suit. He moved his thumb up and down, stroking the outer edge of her first finger. He let go a little and re-clasped her hand so that his fingers were on the back and his thumb on her palm, rotating and feeling her upper palm and her fingers.

Eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, a few exhilarated breaths came out of Isaac, bordering on a laugh, but stopping and starting with the cadence of his curiosity and wonder. Aliens were technically nothing new, but now? One that was speaking to him? Friendly to him (guns notwithstanding)? It may as well have been a fever dream - it felt just as believable.

Where Isaac was dreaming, Nezala was questioning her blood-alcohol content, or at least Isaac's. He wasn't the first human she had met, or even the first human who had never met other species. None of them however, had the gumption to start feeling up her suit. Some were disgusted, others fascinated, but none bold enough to get this handsy. It got hard to pinpoint why it was as soothing as it was uncomfortable; a little conflict between the fact that some stranger's hands were all over her armor and the fact that said stranger - though obviously fatigued, with grey hairs at the temples and bags under the eyes - was frankly handsome. Those eyes, blue grey and so ungodly tired, were sincere. He wasn't some drunkard or lying pervert. He truly had never thought, perhaps either by being lied to, sheltered, isolated, or whatever, that there was no one else out there but humanity. His awe was genuine. That sincerity earned permission to peruse, and though she wouldn't admit it, his looks were certainly helping.

At least until one hand unwittingly landed right on the girdle of her hip, _perfectly_ nestled at her waist.

"_Alright then.._." she said, gingerly swiping his wandering hands away. "That's enough of that."

Isaac's self-consciousness snapped back into him upon hearing some of the crewmembers snicker in amusement. "Right." He cleared his throat, retreating from her a bit. "Where do we go from here?"

"Excellent question." Nezala replied. "Let's see... Alright, tell you what. is there anything here you'll be missing? Anything you need to 'pack,' per se?"

"Not much. Just a few of my tools and weapons. Are we heading out?"

"Yeah" said Nezala, leading him to the hatch, signaling two others to follow. "We'll help you get everything you need. Make sure you bring some of your own rations too. You probably didn't know, but our chirality is dextro-amino, You can't eat the same foods as us."

"Alright. And after that?"

"We're off to the migrant fleet."


	3. Disoriented

The token hum of the myriad systems of a spacefaring vessel were all anyone could hear in the _Jericho_ for a while. The old, hand-me-down Alliance ship had served Nezala and her marines well, but up until this point it has seen little more than mundane, routine use patrolling the fleet. A small handful of minute-long Batarian slaver standoffs was as exciting as the 50-year-old corvette’s sorties had ever been since its retirement in human service.

If Nezala knew the full story behind the man who she was hosting on the ship’s small bridge, its name would go down in history forever. Even now, though everyone on board was clueless, she still took some time to deliberate on her words.

"So, Isaac…" Nezala sat down in a vacant combat officer’s seat. "Let's start off with some of the basics. Where are you from? Sol system native? Somewhere out in the Terminus Colonies?"

"I've never heard of any of those places."

"...Sol is where Earth is found."

"Then I'm from there."

"You seem like you've never heard of my race before. You don't know about the quarians?"

"No one gave me any heads up on anyone else being here." Isaac said with a chuckle. he wasn't sure if he was dreaming or not. "You're literally the first living alien I've met."

"'Living', huh? I’m guessing you've seen dead members of other races."

"Just one. Don't even know their name. Natives of Tau Volantis."

"The planet you were on was Cyone, an Asari planet..."

"I guess.”

“Do you know the star date?”

“Yeah. 2514.”

“… that’s 328 years in the future. The star date is 2186.”

The engineer squinted a little, and his eyes floated downward in contemplation before shooting back up at the Quarian marine. ”Mind if I ask you a few things?"

Realizing that she might get more of a bearing on the story by hearing his alibi, she conceded. "Shoot."

"Are you affiliated in any way with Unitology?"

"I have no idea what that is."

"Thought not. Are you familiar with EarthGov and its subsidiaries?"

"I thought Earth was governed by the Alliance..."

"Interesting.” Pieces were coming together and he wasn’t sure what to make of the picture, but it was coming out enough that room for alternative explanations began running out. “Okay then, lastly, have you been involved in any kind of Marker related phenomena?"

"I think I know where you're getting at."

"I thought so too." Isaac said, getting up from his seat. "Something's gone wrong here... all we did was use the Machine..."

A little red flag popped up in Nezala's mind. "Machine, huh?" She got up and stood behind Isaac. "Something tells me that's where this story gets interesting."

"It is" replied Isaac. "Sure you want to hear it?"

"Does it have something to do with those ships and the dead guys inside them?"

"It has everything to do with that, and a lot more.”

"Well, we’re only a few minutes away from docking. Is it something you can condense in that time?”

The Engineer deliberated. He could see the ETA on the helmsman’s console. 3 minutes. Sure, he could condense anything in that amount of time, but it wouldn’t do it any justice.

“…No.”

“Alright, we’ll save it for the admirals then.” 30 seconds to docking and she was sure she didn’t need to ask anything else, but something about the way Isaac was drooping after that last question, something about the way a mention of the past so quickly deflated him got to her. She couldn’t just leave it alone. “…You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.”

Nothing else. His silence was louder than the automated docking procedure and it drowned out Nezala’s hearing. Once the airlock was sealed and the notification sounded, it shook off immediately, but it left a palpable aftertaste. Isaac’s helmet assembled again as they got ready to disembark, and yet again, the Captain found it hard to pay attention to the sterilizing procedures and other noise pollution found in the airlock. The door opened. She had to say _something_.

“You got everything you need? All your log entries?”

“Everything they’ll need to know and more.” He wasn’t looking at her. Nothing really seemed to have his attention.

Or at least until they made it a little way into the docking passage, and a porthole came up on Isaac’s left. It was just big enough that the portion of the fleet to the Rayya’s starboard could be seen. It captured him like spider’s silk.

No exclamations from him. Just staring. “Pretty big fleet.” His tone was flat. It wasn’t that he was unimpressed. Nezala could gleam that much – it wouldn’t enthrall him like this were it otherwise. He just seemed _numb_. Once again it got hard to stay quiet.

“There’s just as many to port as well.” She thought it would get him talking, but an awkward few seconds of silence bid her send her men ahead while she engaged him. “Our whole people live here.”

“Really?” That seemed to have worked. There was intonation in his voice again. “You’re telling me every Quarian alive lives in these ships?”

“Most of us, yeah. There’s always a sizable chunk of us living off the fleet, like kids on their pilgrimage.”

“Their what?”

“Kind of a rite of passage for us.” They were walking again, though Isaac’s gaze lingered through the porthole for a few steps. “Once we reach the cusp of adulthood, we leave the fleet and retrieve something of value. Proves we can earn our keep. Some people just decide to stay off the fleet”

“Interesting… can I ask why?”

“Well, like your story it’s not a very short one-. “ That was a mistake. Putting two and two together hadn’t been hard – bringing up the past was what had gotten Isaac so quiet. Best not bring it up again. Change the subject back _fast_. “ -but we invented an AI centuries ago that went rogue. We lost our home planet, our seat in the galactic community, and eventually our immune systems as a result.”

“Damn. I’m sorry. I-” He wanted to voice his sympathy, but all this talk of old AI, new species, a galactic community, all of it only served to remind him of his situation. No idea where he was. No idea where this was. No idea how he got here. No idea who else is here.

No idea if Carver’s here

_No idea if Ellie’s here._

There it was again. That inert state that Nezala was now starting to dread. “Isaac?”

They had both stopped again. “I’m sorry, I just- I need a minute.”

“What’s wrong?” Long gone was her militaristic decorum. If it wasn’t already obvious, something was hurting him. He needed someone to understand, not scrutinize, and her voice softened for the occasion. “Isaac, look at me.”

His eyes were just barely visible past the blue slits in the visor. Wide, but horribly tired.

“…”

“Isaac, It’s okay. You can tell me.”

**_“Is this real?”_** His volume was amplified. Not yelling, but loud and solid enough that it got a jolt out of the captain. “Nezala, I don’t even know what’s going on anymore.”

“It’s okay, calm down-“

“I just-“

“You’re alright.”

**_“No, I’m not!”_** Too tired to freak all the way out and too dazed to stay calm, Isaac was caught in an entangled limbo of his own nerves. “I don’t know where I am! I don’t know any of this! Why the fuck am I even here?!”

Nezala kept her voice calm and low. “Hey, calm down! You’ll be okay. We’ll get this sorted out”

“Everything I know is scrambled as shit and the only clue I’ve got to go off of is the machine. I don’t even know where that is now. I don’t know where the people I care about are. _Nezala, I’m lost. I’m hopelessly fucking lost, and I have no idea how to get back home. I don’t even know if home exists anymore.”_

There was another pause before Nezala took him by the shoulders.

“Hey. It’s alright. I know you’re lost. I know you’re worried.”

“And-“

“But we can get this sorted out. We’ve just got to take it a step at a time, okay? We don’t know what’s going on either but hey, neither of us can figure it out by ourselves. We need each other’s help. I just need you to hold out for a little longer. Can you do that for me?”

“…”

_“Isaac?”_

“I can try… How much longer until we meet with your admirals?”

“They want to see you ASAP, but honestly? I think you need some time to catch your breath.”

It was hard to disagree. “I won’t argue.”

“I’m no admiral, but we quarians are tight knit. I was raised here on the Rayya. I know one of the admirals well enough that I can buy you some time to rest.”

“Who?” He wasn’t trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he needed a name. A scrap of anything to get rid of any doubts towards Nezala’s offer.

“Her name is admiral Shala’Raan. I don’t know if I can make any promises, but I can definitely try. How much time to you need to think things over?”

“… Give me at least a day.”

“Okay. One second.” That glowing orange holo-display came up around her wrist again. “C-detachment, come in, this is Captain Verei. Do we have accommodations ready for Clarke?”

“Yeah, they’re ready. Wasn’t he supposed to meet with the Admirals in an hour or so?”

“He’s going to need some time by himself. I can talk to Admiral Raan, just make sure he gets settled.”

“Yes ma’am.” The comms closed.

‘Accommodations’ had a different ring to it than 'room' or 'cell.' Words he had become used to dreading. “How long am I going to be here?”

“I don’t know yet, but honestly? If I have any say, as long as you need.”

The hatch in front of them opened up. Two Quarian marines stood by the receive Isaac. “We’re ready to take you to your space, Mr. Clarke.”

The captain nodded to him as he turned and took after their lead. “You take care, alright?”

“Okay.”

One more pause and the hatch shut. She took a second to process her thoughts before opening comms again, this time to a sister detachment.

“E-detachment, come in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Go and hook up with C-Detachment once Isaac is resting. Pass these orders on – keep him safe.”

“is he unstable?”

“No, just…. He’s really frazzled out and needs time to decompress. I’m already about to get Admiral Raan to call off the day’s itinerary. I just want to make sure someone’s there to see he’s okay for the time being.”

Elevator doors could be heard, followed by the humming of shaft pulleys. “Think he’s gonna hurt himself? Should we disarm him?”

“No, that’ll freak him out more. Just make sure you keep an eye on him. Keep surveillance up, make sure that gun of his doesn’t go anywhere you can’t see.”

“I don’t know about this, captain.”

“I do. Just make sure he’s okay.”

“Aye-aye.”

Comms closed again, and on her way to inform Admiral Raan, all Nezala could think about ran back around to Isaac. Minutes ago, it was all about the ship. The rubble. The tech. Now? It was a scared, rattled lost mess of a man who obviously needed a helping hand.

She wasn’t sure who could give it or how it could be given. All she knew was that no matter how much flak she would get from Admiral Xen or Korris about the delay, it would be well worth it. It was in every Quarian’s interest to serve the needs of the fleet first, but today, it had to take a quick backseat. Nezala went back to her post to compile her landing party report, hoping that this good deed would go unpunished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: "Jettan" has been changed to Cyone - an actual planet in Asari space, often used as a refueling and repair station.


	4. Memory

_ >Day 31 _

_ >Glad to know at least someone has my back here. This whole thing feels like a fever dream. I was wondering why the interstellar relays weren’t responding. Why none of my frequencies were being picked up – by Ellie, by Earthgov, by anyone. I still can’t wrap my head around this. It’s like everything I know was just re-written and the only clue I have is the machine. What in the hell did it do? For all I could tell, all it did was freeze the planet and stop convergence. Nothing in that vision said anything about re-writing time or anything. 328 years in the past, and there’s aliens in it. Who knows what the hell is in that codex? For a little while, that log from Doctor Serrano had me worried – if I’m in the past and there’s aliens, then the brother moons haven’t gotten to them yet. Maybe I would have time to warn these people. This is, of course, until I realized Nezala already knew Sol. She already knew about humans. We’re already part of some sort of community here, no doubt. _

_ >This room might not be 5-star suite material, but what would I know about that, right? Walls are kind of rusted, stuffing tube is visible along the bulkheads, and a simple bed that’s just a few steps above a cot with a side desk and a dim lamp. Small, personal bathroom, facing the bed. I think I see a camera in the corner of the room too. Figures. If anything, it’s not too much of a far cry from CEC crew’s quarters. _

_ >I’m trying to put pieces together in my head, but nothing is coming together into anything I can believe. Alternate universe, timeline, or whatever – it all just sounds so ad hoc. It sounds like something some cartoonist would scribble up, or some quack physicist with more sense of fantasy than actual, tangible science. But what do I know? What do I know compared to the natives of Tau Volantis? Surely if they came up with something that can stop convergence in its tracks, they knew something we’re missing. Maybe I’m just being stubborn. Maybe I’m just blatantly refusing to believe what’s right in front of me. After all, when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth, right? _

_ >I still don’t know. It all feels impossible. All of it. I’ve got to get some rest. I can hear some more of them talking outside. Maybe some sort of watch shift. I don’t know. Hopefully this will all start making sense tomorrow. _

_ _

_ >Month 2, day 1 _

_ >So, I wake up and there’s some sort of wrist-worn device on the desk next to my bed with a note next to it. “Try it on.” Apparently, it’s some sort of equivalent to the RIG, just worn on the arm. Thing’s pretty fascinating, though I’m having no luck in synching it to my own hardware. I can try that later, I guess. Here’s what I know about it so far - it uses some sort of nanomachine technology to forge a semi-solid interface with the user, and the software can be adapted to whatever task you may need – hacking and software interfacing, finances, even combat functions. All I can do with this one is use the ‘extranet.’ That’s where I found out half of this stuff anyway. Also, turns out that yes, we’re already part of some sort of galactic community – humans are having a “Golden Age’ back on earth, and despite being new arrivals, we already have a lot of pull in the galaxy. _

_ >Today’s my little interview with the Admirals. Got a message from them today, but not before I got one from Nezala; apparently, three of the admirals were okay with it right off the bat and two others gave her and Admiral Raan shit. They got shot down when they were told they can better gather information and formulate questions with the added time. I can deal with that, long as I’ve got some time to come up with my own. Asked if that was okay, and apparently, yes, according to both Nezala and that message Admiral Raan gave me, apparently speaking for all of them. Little caveat to keep in mind: evidently, one of them doesn’t want me asking questions at all, like I should be some sort of lab rat. Tough shit, I’m not submitting myself to that again. We either talk as equals, or not at all. _

_ >I think I know what I’ll ask. They’ll inevitably ask about the necromorphs, so I’ll have to ask about ground forces, preventative measures, talking to the colonial authority, etc. Inquiring after radiation spikes or whatever signature we can tag onto the machine is a must. I’ve got to know if it’s still out there somewhere, and if I can use it. If I can get my RIG signal recognized, maybe we can search for John and Ellie too. Other than that, we’re gonna have to play it by ear. I know for a fact they’re going to want a look at the tech. _

_ >Nezala messaged me. The admirals pushed it back to later today. 1800 sharp. It’ll be onboard their envoy ship. They’ve got a new addition to the board from what I hear. Got the butterflies. It’ll be private. Gave them a heads up that some of the material may be sensitive. Here’s hoping everything goes well. _

_ >_END LOG _

The RIGLINK display vanished and left Isaac’s eyes glued to the grey bulkheads. There were questions to come up with and maybe a few scenarios to prepare for (mostly the salvage), yet his mind couldn’t be farther from focused. All the pertinent things were still bounding around at the back of his mind while the forefront stayed frustratingly blank. The shock wasn’t doing it. Sleeping it over had gotten him over the hump of uncertainty and back in the moment. It was just some dull, inscrutable mental languor that kept him from bringing forth the hundreds of questions ravaging the back of his head, unable to make themselves heard. Every now and then one or two would clamber their way to the surface.

_What’s the nature of spacefaring here?_

_When was the meridian for the star date?_

_Who runs things? How much say do Humans have in the community?_

Some images from his walk to his quarters– crowds of impoverished people, some elderly being fed by their adult children, whole families cramped in corners between bulkheads with little more than a carpet below them and a tarp above – reminded him of one particular inquiry.

_What can I do to help?_

It sounded a little sappy, but Isaac still had his humanity, no matter how much the wear and tear of the years battered at it. If all these people lived up here, that meant some of his engineering expertise could be of use. Living cramped was a CEC employee’s way of life, especially on months long planet-cracking ops. Compartmentalizing some of the more open spaces could help, like with the renovation and retrofitting work done on the USG _Bainbridge_, a smaller planetcracker he worked on earlier in his career. The _Ishimura_ went through a few of those too in her long years of service. Improving the liveships couldn’t be too different from what he heard about expansions on the sprawl…

Then of course, mentioning that damned station brought it up, and for the millionth time since he got here it soon overshadowed anything else he was thinking about.

_Where’s Ellie and Carver?_

Maybe Ellie was out of reach, but Carver fell with him. The machine had to have something to do with it. Then of course, he would have to have been able to pick up Isaac’s transmission. What if Ellie was also in the Machine’s range? The rubble didn’t comprise all of the SC flotilla, there could have been more on the planet. And maybe-

Isaac’s mind was a blur again. He had to catch himself before a headache would wind up splitting his temples. He looked back at his clock – an hour and a half since he had woken up. Six more until it was time to meet the admiralty

Luckily, someone had come to help him pass that time. A rapping came at his door.

“Isaac? You there?” Nezala’s voice was as familiar as it was welcome.

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I come in?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, nor did she really need to. Surveillance feeds showed her how often his eyes were drawn to the second hatch (accommodations for outsiders came with an airlock to maintain ship sterility). It shot open, giving Isaac a start.

“_WOAH!_ Jesus…”

“Ahahah! Sorry Isaac.”

“It sure as hell didn’t close that fast. CEC would have someone gigged.”

“Hmm?”

“Oh. Safety regs back where I’m from. I, uh… “ Another sentence died in his throat. Finding a way to segue into ‘I’m still wondering why I’m here and what I should do’ was harder than he thought.

Apparently however, it was as simple as saying “I’m still wondering why I’m here and what I should do.”

“Still feel lost, huh?” She took a seat on the cot, across from Isaac. “Just how different are things?”

A little wheeze that almost could have been a laugh rasped out of him. “You have no idea. Nezala, that whole planet would have been stripped down to the mantle in days if we ever found it.”

The concept of planet-cracking way almost beyond the Captain’s grasp. “I’m sorry what?”

“Stripped bare. Cracked open. Cork popped. You guys don’t have planet-crackers? Not even asteroid mining?”

“That last one is the sanest sounding thing in that entire sentence Isaac. Are things really that bad?”

A brief silence ensued as Isaac gathered a response that could almost do that question justice. “Nezala, I’ve never seen a live animal in my life. The fruit and fish I had on Cyone? That’s the first thing I’ve eaten in years that isn’t processed. Last time was, shit, was it that second dinner I had with Nicole? Just about broke a whole month’s salary on a steak dinner just because it was made from a real animal and chances are it was in-vitro, then sped-raised in a tank a few weeks before slaughter.”

“Keelah… Isaac, that’s awful.”

“Yeah but it’s not unusual, is it?”

“…”

“I suppose that’s a yes?”

“That’s not a trick question is it?” Incredulousness mingled with playful smugness in her voice. “I mean, our whole species has lived on a fleet of ships for centuries now. We don’t even have a tenth of our original immune systems anymore, and not even we have it that bad. A lot of the liveships have food gardens on top of regular hydroponics. Getting resources can be a pain and a lot of council space systems are complete sticklers when we trudge along asking for help. Terminus space is even worse sometimes. Still, we’ve never had to crack any planets open. How is that even possible?”

The sizable RIGlink holo-display came up and Isaac fingers sifted through the archived logs and other bits of info he had saved on it. There weren’t many personal files on his RIG when he set off for Tau Volantis, but there was a handful of pictures and vids – one of them from his first voyage aboard the Ishimura. It depicted her gravity tethers popping the cork on one of many exo-planets reduced to rubble by her and her crew.

Nezala stood up just to get a closer look. Nearly tempted to call Isaac a liar, she examined the Ishimura and her mission; the torn up planetary crust, the partially exposed mantle, the ethereal blue of the gravity tethers, the tether anchors and the cracking rock beneath them, just to try and find any evidence that it might have been some vid she had seen.

“Crazy isn’t it?”

The captain was too lost in the gravity of the image and her voice trailed off in it. “I-I don’t think I’ve ever seen-“

“Oh shit! Hold on, I have a video file of that mission.”

The image swiped down, and in its place was all the remaining confirmation Nezala needed that this was all so very frighteningly real. The footage was shaky at first and devoid of audio, until all at once, whooping and hollering could be heard echoing in the confines of a small vessel. Most of them were men’s voices. Isaac’s was first. His face came onscreen, breaking through dissipating static.

“Alright… Star date, August 14th, 2506. We’ve been out for about seven months, prospecting phase wrapped up yesterday, and we’re about…”

The wrist mounted recorder turned towards a rectangular porthole, the Ishimura visible nearby.

“… to pop the cork. You said this was your first time, Temple?”

The camera swept around to a younger man, black haired and staring out with wonder. “Y-yeah.”

“Well you’re in for a treat.”

_*GRAVITY TETHERS ENGAGING. ALL AUXILIARY CRAFT, STAY CLEAR_*

“Yeah boy!”

“Ah shit here it comes!”

“Come on, baby.”

Multiple voices fluttered in and out between sounds of a siren.

“Get ready Jacob!”

Temple brought up his RIGlink. “Elizabeth! Liz, are you seeing this?!”

“Hon, I’m in the medbay. There’s no way to watch it.”

The tethers connected, and the light intensified. “Aw, man. Liz, I should’ve brought you with.”

“You know we can’t do that, Jacob…”

“Hey, you can just show her right now, can’t you?”

“Uh, sure! Your supervisor okay with it, Liz?”

“GUYS! LOOKLOOKLOOKLOOKLOOK!” A frantic hand pointed out from behind Isaac.

“Ah, there it is!”

“Oh my God…”

Nezala felt like she fit right in Jacob’s boots. The shouts, the cheers, the sirens, her own breathing drowned out by her shock and awe. The tethers contracted, and a chunk of the planet, large enough to encompass part of a continent came rising towards the Ishimura. Lightning cracked all around it as the atmosphere churned by the fissure and poured out from around the edges. The resulting winds blew dust outward towards the faultlines, first in thin streaks whipping about the grey surface, then in billowing plumes as the winds slowed down past the edges of the ‘cork.’ Too far beyond the thermosphere to hear it, the throng aboard the small prospecting vessel cheered to the silent spectacle. All they could hear was the cadence of the proximity warning sirens, heralding, as it were, the death of this small planet with triumph and candor.

Then, the video cut short. The log closed, and Nezala’s eyes fell on Isaac through the RIGlink display.

“So, nothing like that here, huh?”

Nezala had to force her mouth into talking. “No! No, we’ve never-… most anyone ever does is asteroid mining. Isaac, I’m not sure how ready I am to ask about what else ‘home’ was like.”

“That’s reasonable”

That’s when she noticed a list to the video player’s side. “But what about you?”

“Hmm?”

“You personally. I think I get the general idea about where you’re from and it isn’t pretty, but we can save the CEC and whatever until the admirals. That’s what _they_ want to know.”

“And what do _you_ want to know?”

She deliberated a bit, eyes rifting back to the indexing. “I want to know Isaac.” She clicked on a random file from the directory.

‘Wait!”

A picture of Isaac with a woman came up, a nebulous amber light serving as the backdrop. The woman was brunette; short cropped, but unruly hair sweeping to the side of her face. She appeared to have heterochromia, with one eye being green and the other blue. She lay her head on Isaac’s shoulder, looking content. Isaac looked far less ragged. Bags under his eyes and graying hair notwithstanding, he actually looked like there was energy in him. There was just enough of a smile there that he actually might have been happy.

The longer she looked however, the more it seemed to be reversing into a frown

That’s when she realized she was looking through the hologram. It disappeared, and all the wrinkles and exhaustion and wear were back.

“Who was that?”

“… That was Ellie.”

It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. “You mentioned her before.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Isaac twiddled his thumbs. He wasn’t sure how much he was ready to explain about Ellie. From the sprawl, to their life together, to the way he dragged her through the mud and never bothered to take her hand and actually let her uplift and heal him, constantly doubting anything could help and shoving away someone who was so obviously willing, maybe even able to help, then somehow finding a way to feel sorry for himself and stew in self-loathing when she left, unable to bear being brought down by him before learning that she had moved to on someone who- …

The Captain could see the gears turning in Isaac’s head. She didn’t know any particulars, but the forlorn longing on his face told her all she needed. “She meant to world to you didn’t she?”

“She did.”

“What happened?”

“Well…” it was hard to explain it all and do it any justice, so he elected to go for the concise version. “We met at a really stressful time. Life-or-death, matter of fact. We went through a lot together. A lot of trauma. I try saving her life by giving mine and… ***pfthaha***, oh God, she just can’t take no for an answer.”

That little laugh eked a spark of life into him, if only for a few seconds. “She breaks through the roof, ducks me out of there at the literal last second, and we make it out safe. We live together for the next couple of years. Get close. Emotionally, physically, whole nine yards but without a ring, picket fence, or kids. We couldn’t afford a childbearing permit anyway. But yeah, we get close and stay close for a while.”

It took a moment for Nezala to process and move on from the words ‘childbearing permit.’ “And then?”

“… And then I fucked it up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah it’s, I-I’d rather not bring it up.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I’m sorry. I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to shut you down or anything or-“

“Isaac, you’re okay. I can tell when some boundaries aren’t ready to be crossed yet.”

“And, I mean, before I do close the book, I just want to say that we have patched it up.”

“Yeah.”

“It was a rough ride and we both got put through the ringer again, but we’ve patched up. I didn’t want to leave you hanging on that.”

“You’re fine, Isaac.”

Isaac simply nodded.

‘We’ll help you find her. Don’t worry.”

“I hope we will.”

“I know we will. Trust me, this little thing with you and the junkyard on Cyone just snatched a pretty high spot on our priority list. We won’t put you in the backburner.”

“… Thank you.”

There it was. Just that tiny glint of a tired smile that let her know he was going to be okay. The Fleet’s objectives were somewhere in the corner of her mind – something about getting prerequisite information that could assist the admirals in their inquiry, but they seemed to matter less and less as time went on. All the paperwork, all the interrogation, all the noise could wait for just one more second. It was coming inevitably, so why bring it in any sooner than it has to?

The Captain cleared her throat a little. “Oh, by the way, Isaac- “

“Yeah?”

Nezala’s hands went straight to her now swaying hips. “When we do find Ellie, she wouldn’t be mad if I tell her about how we met, right?”

“Wha-? Oh. Oh **_God_**, come on…” Isaac’s face went straight down into his palms.

Now her hands were wandering all over herself. “_Whaaaat?_”

Words were snaking their way through Isaac’s laughter. “Nezala, come on! I was curious!”

“Is that all, huh?”

“Oh _fuck_ me, you are just like her.”

To Nezala, that wide smile of his was as good of a payoff as any. “Really now?”

“Oh yeah. She’s a huge tease. Full of energy too. When you’re as tired as I am, you need someone like that in your life. I just wish I realized that in time.”

A notification from Nezala’s Omni-tool rudely cut in. Her eyes mulled over the message and closed it before turning back to Isaac. “Well, looks like command wants me back.”

“For what?”

“Reports, pencil-pushing, all that jazz. Basically, just tell them how you’re doing.”

“And what’ll you tell them?”

“I’ll tell them you’re doing fine. You’re stable, rested, and a lot better off than how we found you.”

“Nezala?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe me?”

She noticed the smile had disappeared, and his eyes were now drilling into hers. “I’m sorry, I-what?”

“Do you believe me? Anything I’ve said? Any of the stories I’ve told you? Any of the pictures or videos I’ve shown you? We’ve known each other for a little more than 24 hours now. Nezala, I have to know. Do you really, honestly believe a word I have said? Or do you think I’m crazy? Do you think I just made it all up? I can’t stress it enough. Even if it’s only a little bit, _I **need** to know. Do you believe me?”_

Her eyes never avoided his. It came after a second or two, but it still came quicker than he expected.

“Yes, I do.”

Isaac needed to be sure. He feared uncertainty more than the possibility of sounding grating or prying. “Why?”

“Isaac, there are ships in that wreck that don’t match any known models of spaceworthy vessel ever manufactured. Hours of scouring records and bugging different municipalities for their archives yielded no matches. None of the ships left a wake, meaning they didn’t re-enter and crash. The Asari Government on Cyone received and cataloged your broadcasts. It took them that whole month to decipher the origin of the wavelength, because no known device works on it. We’ve already recovered some of the wreckage. Out of necessity, we’ve become one of the most technologically knowledgeable species in the galaxy and we can’t figure half this stuff out. Isaac, I would have to be crazy myself if I didn’t believe you.”

“… Okay. Okay, good.”

“You, and that Carver guy.”

Isaac shot out of his seat. “What?!”

“You’re not the only stranger here, Isaac. He crashed with a smaller number of ships about 40 clicks away from you. We recovered him from colonial authorities about five hours after we recovered you.”

“_Holy shit, John’s still alive_… What has he told you?”

“Not much yet. Mostly this ‘machine’ thing and your mission to ‘Tau Volantis.’ Once again, I’d have to be crazy not to believe you.”

“Did you find anyone else?”

“No.”

“Shit…”

“Well hey, like I said, we’ll get this sorted out. You and Carver will be correlating your stories with the admiralty board together.”

“Damn, that’s right. When was that again?”

“18:00 on the envoy ship.”

“Okay. How do I conduct myself? Any customs I should adhere to?”

“Not much, especially for aliens. Don’t worry. Just don’t let yourself get tense.”

“Any one of them I should look out for in particular?”

“Well, Admiral Korris is kind of a frumpy old coward, so expect him to assess whether you’re a threat or not. Admiral Raan is the one who helped me secure you some time to rest, so you can let your guard down around her. Gerrell is friendly enough, but he’s ambitious, so expect him to drill you for tech. Be careful around Admiral Xen. If she gets too probing or propositions you for experiments, the others should try to bail you out.”

‘That all?”

‘Oh, and we just got a new one. She’s replacing her father. Tali’Zorah. Young little thing. Been serving on a human ship for the past year or so. Her captain got recalled to Earth, so she’s been installed here. Don’t worry about her. She’s harmless. Biggest tech nerd in the fleet, and that says something.”

‘What is she, an engineer?”

“Yep.”

“Me too.”

“Oh, Keelah, don’t let her get wind of that, or she’ll talk your ear off all night. I guarantee you she’ll want to know how to work the gear we found in the rubble.”

“Gotcha.”

Her omni-tool went off again, and she quickly closed it in dismissal. “***Ugh*** Alright, I gotta go. Command’s about to read me the riot act.”

“You’re fine. Will you be on the envoy ship?”

“Yep. I was the first one of us to contact you, so they’ll want me there.” The first door opened with a sudden scrape and hiss as she stepped past it. “Oh, and Isaac?”

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You got it.”

The door shut behind her.


	5. Elucidation

There were no real portholes on the shuttle, ergo no way to see the alleged other shuttle making its way to the envoy ship. Carver had to be in there. Covert attempts to contact his RIG Signal had fallen flat. Any time he tried to pretend fiddling with the RIG chassis, the camera would immediately pan to him, and if his back were turned to hide it, there would be a squad of marines calmly but firmly asking questions. Questions about what he was working on, what it did, what he was hoping to do with it, etc. Nothing especially pressing or heated, but definitely bordering on the invasive. Three times now they’ve drilled him. He wasn’t about to try a fourth, even if everyone’s back was turned.

He looked up to the helm’s HUD, barely visible past the open hatch. They were three quarters of the way there. Another blip was visible to starboard bow, approximately 1.48 klicks out and-

“Isaac?”

“Yeah?”

Nezala was gripping the rail above the port exit hatch. “You’re doing your ‘thing’ again. Everything okay?”

“My ‘thing?’ What ‘thing?’”

“The ‘staring in silence’ thing. What’s on your mind?”

“… Were you the one who sent the Marines to my room all those times?”

Her immediacy assuaged his fears. “Nope. I’m not in charge of this little Cyone detail. It’s directly under the Admirals’ supervision. Very few middle men but two links up the chain of command from me, and those guys order a visit when surveillance sees something.”

“Hmm. Well, why all the visits? Did we spook anyone? Was it anything I told you?”

“No…” Her voice was trailing into frustration as she faced the helmsman’s console. Docking was already underway. “The Admirals are up to some big shit. I’ve been close enough to know. They’re talking war with the Geth. The door knocking isn’t even restricted just to you and Carver. We-“

“Captain Verei!” Her eyes narrowed as she turned to one of two armed subordinates. “Are you sure Clarke needs to hear all this?”

“He’s about to hear it anyway. What’s it to you, Sergeant?”

His companion spoke up “True but, honestly, letting ourselves get that loose-lipped isn’t a good habit. Not now especially.”

“Look if the Admirals want to gig me for blurting out what everyone already knows, they can feel free. Maybe I can remind them that they did this without the Conclave and then forewent recusing their seats like the law states, huh?”

“Not everyone knows, captain-“

“That is a total crock of shit and you know it, Karoh.”

“Captain-“

“What do you think they make of us blowing the Blue Suns to hell on Korlus, huh? Or the fact that we’re in the middle of retrofitting literally every ship in the fleet with their guns?”

“Nezala, we-“

“Daelan, Karoh, I know the two of you mean well. Neither of you are the bureaucratic type. You don’t want anyone to freak out, but I think the people are owed some honesty.”

“Does that include me?”

Three pairs of glowing eyes landed on Isaac. “Nezala, I can get behind what you’re telling the others here, but does any of it apply to me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Carver? He and Ellie were the only survivors of our mission. They’re important to me. If you knew he’s here, why withhold that from me?”

“It wasn’t my decision, Isaac. Admirals figured that if we kept you separate, there would be no way you could corroborate any bogus stories. Kind of like a double-blind test. Your junkyard gave everyone a lot of questions and with you and Carver, there were two people who could give us answers. Problem is, we’re in a spot where we couldn’t afford to be lied to.”

“What, you thought me and Carver would be dishonest with you?”

“Isaac, we didn’t know you then. You just caught us at a critical time. The Asari government aren’t our biggest fans because of all the bargaining Gerrel shoved down their throats, we’re gearing up to fight the geth, and all of a sudden, a ton of wreckage full of unknown technology and corpses shows up where we’re retrofitting.”

Nezala could see his brow furrowing and looking down a little. His momentary silence made it all the easier to read. She got up close, abruptly launching from the rail to kneel and get to eye-level, startling him. “_Isaac?_”

Her tone was firm and yanked his eyes to hers. “What?”

“You still trust me, right? After all we talked about?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I just… I just have some really bad experiences with this kind of thing.”

‘What kind of thing?”

“Governments keeping secrets and involving me in them. I never had a say. I never asked for anything they did to me or did with me.“

Her voice had softened, but her earnestness hadn’t. “I don’t know the story yet, but I think I know where it’s going. Do you think we’re going to do that to you, Isaac?”

“… No.”

The pilot’s voice sounded from the cockpit. “30 seconds till docking, Captain.”

Nezala got to her feet, bringing Isaac up with her by the shoulder. “No one’s here to hurt you, Isaac. You’ll be okay.”

“That’s if I can survive your admirals.”

“Yeah, some of them can be difficult, but hey, you won’t encounter much more than what we went over. You should be fine.” Now they stood side by side at the hatch. A rumbling from below signaled downward thrusters, and a tremor from behind them must have been bay doors. Another tremor and low, harmonic hum sounded the re-pressurizing of the bay. “And besides, failing all else, you've got me.”

Isaac felt a palm patting and fingers gripping on his shoulder. He didn’t bother to check – He knew it was her hand, and it was just fine. “Thanks. That means a lot-_HEY!_”

The Captain’s hand had fallen from Isaac’s shoulder right to the narrow of his waist. “Whoops!”

He could hear the shuttle detail snickering behind him. It was hard to keep his own smile under wraps as he tried swiping, then grabbing her hand off as it kept wavering near his hips. “Jesus, Nezala come on!”

“Come on, captain. Stop messing with him.”

“Oh hush, Daelan.”

The hatch opened, revealing the compact shuttle bay and the elevator hatch presumably leading to the other decks.

Isaac was still smiling and stifling laughter. “Let me get my helmet on. Sterility and everything.”

“Yeah, like you conveniently forgot that I told you the envoy ship doesn’t need that.”

A chortle snuck in past each of Isaac’s syllables. “Nope. Sorry. Not listening.”

The fore and aft sections of his headgear were already coming out of their berth and assembling around his head. Plate upon plate unstacked and formed together in irregular tessellation to the sound of clanking steel and whirring servos before the final seams came together with a low clack and a loud, deep hiss as the suit pressurized. It was a two second spectacle that never got easier to get used to.

“I’ve never told you Isaac, but that looks more and more expensive every time you do it.”

“That’s most standard RIGs worth your money.” The party stepped from the shuttle. Even through filters, they could smell the ‘burnt’ scent cosmic radiation left behind. The elevator hatch opened before them.

“I’m gonna pretend I know what that is. In the meantime, I don’t imagine you can pretend to know about the whole Geth situation.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Well first-“ Isaac felt a solid smack on the back of his head. “-Take that thing off.”

“Yeah yeah…”

___________

“So they kicked you out of Rannoch? Why didn’t they pursue you?”

“We’ve had several theories. Some have been thinking they’re mounting for an assault on Citadel Space. Most others think they’re just content to have everything in the Perseus veil all to themselves, mostly because no one gets in without them shooting at you.”

“You guys are really gonna throw yourselves at them when you don’t know what they’ve been doing?”

“If it were up to me, we wouldn’t. Even with all this new kit you brought in, I still don’t know if it’s possible. Technically the decision hasn’t been made yet.”

“I’m not going to pretend I’m suddenly an expert, but this sounds like a bad idea.”

“The worst part is that I can understand where they’re coming from. You saw how we’ve been living up here when we took you further into the Rayya, right?

“Yeah. I saw it. Doesn’t look like there’s much room left.”

“We’ve been cramped together, wandering and unwanted and surrounded by a vacuum for almost three hundred years. Some say a chance to make it stop is worth dying for. I still don’t know whether I agree or not.”

The next set of guarded bulkhead doors shot open to reveal a spacious expanse of a room compred to the compact corridors walked up until this point. Reception desks lay empty, consoles inactive and stationery apparently stowed. A bigger bulkhead door stood at the head of the room, beset by one more detail of guards. Separate waiting rooms for dignitaries sat nearest the far end while seating lined the port and starboard bulkheads. The room exuded a much more pristine polish than the more weathered Rayya and her accommodations. Sleek, satin finish on the bulkheads and streamlined design sheathed whatever access crew had to stuffing tubes and pipelines. It gnawed a little at Isaac’s sensibilities as a mining engineer, used to the dirt and grime of the CEC and what little he had seen of the Rayya.

“Alright, next room is it, Isaac. You ready?”

‘I think so. Anything else I should know?”

“That’s the quick and dirty version. I’m sure the Admiralty board will fill in any specifics.”

His eyes switched between the sleek contours of the bulkheads and the closing distance between him and the door. The several passageways and guarded checkpoints the detail passed through en route to the conference room didn’t register to Isaac as Nezala recounted her people’s story. It was only a seven-minute process all in all, with guards checking credentials and elevators being called, coupled with the walk, but Nezala had been good at using that time to keeping Isaac absorbed. Now the other shoe was ready to drop. He didn’t have everything, but he had enough for a foothold on the situation. Enough to not be clueless. That was good enough for the moment.

“Here goes…”

The last bulkhead opened. It was about as spacious as the reception compartment, furnished at the center with a oblong conference desk, sparse seats, and little else but a series of timepieces at the head of the room, recounting several homeworld times. Two other hatches led from either side of the room. At the desk stood four more quarians, suits somewhat more decorative than a commoner, but not to exorbitant excess. Two men and two women. The closest proffered her hand as the detail entered.

“Welcome, Isaac Clarke. I am Admiral Shala’Raan vas Tonbay. On behalf of the admiralty board, I would like to officially welcome you to the Migrant fleet. I must apologize for the clandestine appearance of our actions. We only wanted to ensure the safety of our people.”

“Thank you, admiral.” His eyes dashed to the door and back again, searching. “Wasn’t Carver going to be here?”

“Mister Carver will be with us shortly. You and Nezala are technically early.”

“I would say they’re a day late, Raan.” The other Admiral’s venom wasn’t lost on Isaac, and he and Nezala shot a harsh glance at her.

“Do not be too impatient to use your new countermeasure, Admiral Xen.” One of the male Admirals spoke up from beside her. “I’m as eager to repel the geth as you are, but there’s no pressing here. We can afford Mr. Clarke as much time as he needs to-“

“To help us reap our own doom, Gerrel?! Mister Clarke, I apologize for their warmongering, especially when your technology can be so much better used to usher in peace and a better future for our-“

“Koris, we’ve been over this. It’s going to happen.”

“We haven’t even cast the vote yet, Xen!”

“**_Admirals, please!_**” Raan’s exhaustion with her colleagues oozed out of the drawn rasp in her voice. “We must be able to maintain our civility in front of guests!”

Blocking out the squabble, Isaac looked back at the Captain, whispering. _“You didn’t warn me about this…”_

_“Tensions are high. They’re gonna be a little pissy.”_

The starboard hatch opened and put a swift quiet to the squabble. Out of it came two more guards accompanying another quarian marine, led by a refreshingly familiar face.

“Carver!”

“Isaac!”

Pushing past Xen and Gerrel, Carver plowed his way to the engineer, embracing him with a firm slap on the back. “You crazy son of a bitch, I thought I lost you!”

“Shit man, why didn’t you get my broadcast?”

“Uni and SC ships were fucked. I didn’t know how to fix the comms.”

“What about your RIG? Looks like it still works.”

An attempt to bring up the RIG’s holo-display gave them only a frizzy mess of static and an error message before closing. “Everything but RIGlink. Life support, thrusters, helmet, everything’s okay except for the RIGlink computer.”

“Ah don’t worry, that’s an easy fix. Give me half an hour with it and I should be able to patch it up.”

John’s companion spoke up from behind him. “You could just use your new omni-tool to contact him, Mr. Clarke.”

“I would if I was given his code. You the one who found him?”

“After the Asari had him interred, yeah. Name’s Kal. Kal’Reegar.”

“Good to meet you, man.”

**“*Ahem!*” **Admiral Xen’s venom once more set the air afoul. “if we’re done with idle pleasantries, I assume we’re finally ready to attend to the itinerary?”

Raan’s drained spirit did little to dissolve her decorum. “Point taken, Admiral Xen. If everyone will be seated, we can begin.”

Isaac and Carver were situated across from each other, accompanied by Nezala and Kal respectively, with the Admirals set at the head of the conference room. “I would like to officially call this Admiralty Board session to order. We welcome visitors Isaac Clarke and John Carver to the Flotilla, and hope that, following today’s proceedings, we may be able to usher in a new future for the Migrant Fleet, and perhaps the galaxy as a whole. We will begin with proper introduction. If our guests would present their recollection of recent events to the board?”

A little nudge on the shoulder and a nod up from Nezala got Isaac on his feet, Carver following. “Where would you like us to start?”

“Mr. Carver mentioned a ‘mission to Tau Volantis.’ If you would kindly elaborate?” Gerrel was as congenial as Nezala had said.

Now to just be wary of the ambition she forewarned him about. “Our objective was to investigate a location that may have held the key to stopping something called ’The Marker.’” Isaac felt like a scab in his brain was being picked at.

Carver was quick on the uptake. “I was a Special Forces Operator under Earthgov jurisdiction deployed under the supervision of a captain Robert Norton to provide armed escort and search-and-rescue efforts aimed at the primary research team deployed to the location.”

“Yes, I am informed of this ‘marker’ threat by preliminary reports turned in by Sergeant Reegar after examining Mr. Carver.” Xen’s venom was gone, but not her serpentine inflection. “I am however curious about how Isaac’s preliminary reports show nothing of this.”

“I regret to inform the admiralty board that I failed to retrieve any such information.”

Passive-aggressive was an easy trap for Koris to fall into. “We appreciate your forthrightness, Nezala’Verei. However, if information was not duly shared, there was no way you could have known. The fault therefore is on Mr. Clarke. Isaac, if you care to elaborate?”

“I was planning on telling you now. What did carver tell you?”

“That can wait until _you_ tell us, Mr. Clarke.”

That little jab wasn’t lost on him. “Jesus, are you people really going to be that paranoid?” He paused, as if anticipating an answer from the dignitaries who stood in silent shock at an outsider’s brazenness. “Fine. I’ll show you myself.”

The word ‘RIGlink’ shone in bright bold letters before the board, and the same menu Nezala saw in Isaac’s quarters came up. Isaac tabbed through ‘video logs’ before bypassing it to access ‘system memory,’ scrolling through several choice files under the ‘April 2514’ timestamp before hitting ‘send to vidlogs?’ Tabbing back, there were several new video files in the log folder, the first of them bearing thumbnails hinting at some terrible frozen wasteland.

“Wait Isaac, you were recording?”

“Nope. Jailbroke my RIG. It passively records anything from auditory and visual sensors, then logs it when prompted by a user. I made it so I could do that after the fact. It disposes of any footage older than a year otherwise.”

“Well shit…”

“Hmm… Admiral Raan, when did Tali say she would be arriving?”

“Admiral Gerrel, don’t be so forgetful as to her new title, secondly, we agreed she would come when we’ve called for a recess once she’s compiled enough information on the salvaged technology. Mr. Clarke, Continue.”

He scrolled down, musing over what footage would best summarize the scenario. He chose one chronicling the latter events of that evening on Tau Volantis, after the attack that cost Doctor Santos her life. A field of black, twisting spires was set against the backdrop of a northern evening sky with streaks of the planet’s active magnetosphere visible in the distance. A thin sheet of snow blanketed the obelisks and coated the ground. Static blurred what seemed to be strange figures among the spires.

Admiral Koris leaned forward to get a better look. “What are those?”

Isaac’s hand lingered above the play key. “Those are markers.”

The footage played, the ‘camera’ swaying about as Isaac scanned the area. Memory instilled in him as it played, most of it foul and liable to bring the hairs of his neck to attention. Not much in the way of sound but the icy wind of the native environment. Not much light but the aurora above and the facility lights in the near distance. Not much presenting itself but those black, rune-encrusted stones littering the icy ground. The Admirals were silent as the imagery etched itself into their vision. Silence. Nothing for a few more seconds but dreadful, blackened silence.

It stayed quiet for just long enough before the hissing of some craft’s engine began to ramp up the audience’s heartbeat. A blinding ray of light darted into view, and the camera danced and swerved with Isaac’s hurried footsteps and breath. Ducking behind one of the spires, the light missed him. The camera shot up to see the source. A small craft hovered overhead, its engines blasting the snow below, whipping it about the camera and around the stones and helical relics. Little other details could be made out but the engines, searchlight, and the imposing guns mounted to the bow. The vistas then violently swerved about as Isaac ran from stone to stone, seeking refuge. A holo-panel on a nearby door offered sanctuary, and before the gunship could zero on Isaac, it had opened and shut behind him. A hushed gasp came from one of the admirals when frozen, emaciated human remains came on screen. Their faces exposed, mummified to frozen leather with eyes shriveled, blackened, and sunken into the sockets.

“Is that- is that what the marker does to them?”

“Hmm?”

Suspense had subdued Gerrel’s voice. “Is that what those markers do to people? Carver mentioned something about-“

“No. You haven’t seen that yet.” Carver interjected. “Keep watching.”

Another door – a circular airlock to the outside. Howling wind shearing against steel, then shrieking as it whipped past the opening lock. Now, a small corridor through the rock serving as a thoroughfare into another area.

And a lone figure at the end. Twitching. Convulsing violently. A shoulder mounted flashlight wildly flaring around the ice and stone. Sputtering and gargling, its head shook like a rattle, utterances guttural and animal and horribly fast. In an instant, it fled. Out of sight as fast as it had come.

“Keelah, what the hell was that?!”

Isaac was numb to the sight. His coolness started to worry his hosts. “Too far away to see clearly, Admiral Raan. Just wait.”

Bobbing with his steps, the view swerved about until the frozen corridor came to an end. Two humans came into sight, one uttering a single word.

_“CLARKE!”_

He shouldered a rifle, only for that horrible gurgling, garbling call to come back, intensifying in volume with its instant approach. The humans had no chance. It was upon them from the rocks, and by the time the second had seen it, his companion had been skewered. Long, spiny blades rent his flesh, jamming through his protective vesture and puncturing his lungs with a sickening low pop, rendering the man silent before tossing his fresh corpse aside. The other began firing, desperately trying to catch up with the monster, but as fast as it entered his sights, it sped away, leaving him firing at nothing three times before its blades sunk into his chest, over and over, the blue lights on his RIG dulling to yellow, then red with each stab. The last barb left his chest in an upward heave, pulling the air out of his lungs with a croaking gasp before throwing the choking man to gargle his own blood, laying on the snow, clutching himself in a few final seconds of agony. He hadn’t stopped moving by the time it was upon Isaac, shambling sideways at blinding speed, unnatural, it’s whole silhouette a blur.

Isaac paused the video as its face came to meet his, blades poised to tear into him.

The Admirals and other quarians leaned in to meet the monster. The film was grainy, but what little details they could make out were already freezing their blood and shutting their throats. The creature was human once. The frozen, shattered remains of a human face could be seen behind goggles, broken facegear, and blur. Teeth were jutting out from lipless, black gums in gaping jaws with torn cheeks. Eyes were sunken in, mere black dots behind the goggles. The arms had been severed, bleached bone visible at the stumps. New ‘arms’ of flesh and repurposed bone came out from the shoulders, wiry sinews strung about the torn, remolded muscle terminating in calcified claws made from the shoulder cuff and fused upper ribs.

‘That, Admirals, is a necromorph.”

“A what?”

“That's what we call those things.” Carver replied to Xen with cool exactness. “The term was first coined by a Doctor on the USG Ishimura, where an outbreak occurred. Clarke was present for that.”

“’Ishimura?’ Isaac…” Nezala couldn’t take her eyes off the screen. “Y-you didn’t show me this…”

Raan knew immediately what she was talking about. “I remember observing the footage where you showed Captain Verei your ‘planet-cracking’ mission aboard this ‘Ishumura’ vessel. Did it happen in the same timeframe as-?”

“No, I was re-assigned from the Ishimura long before it happened. I only came back after an SOS was sent – I was part of a repair crew.”

“My government had extensive files on the incident. I got to hear a lot of the original files collected by Isaac and several others involved as part of my briefing before being inducted in E-Gov spec ops.” John had to correct himself. He had said _Clarke_ before. Isaac deserved first-name basis.

“We can get to that later though. Right now, we can get down to how this all works. First-“

The port hatch suddenly opened, and some of the guards and admirals jumped. A young quarian woman came rushing in, her arm clad in her omni-tool, and her breath heaving. Her mask and cloth adornments were lavender, adorned at the top by some gold accompaniment. Her build was lithe, slim, youthful, more so than other quarians Isaac and carver had seen. Wide eyes glowed behind her mask, and slurred speech fumbled out of her mouth.

“A-admirals, I ***gasp*** I’ve made some huge dis**-*gasp*-**discoveries from the sal-“

“Admiral Tali'Zorah? I thought you were to join us after our primary recess?”

‘Sorry Raan, but I couldn’t keep quiet on this! There’s technology in that rubble that exceeds ours by cen**-*huff***-centuries!”

‘Tali! Tali! Calm down. We were in the middle of learning about our guests’… background”

That hesitant pause didn’t register at first. “Oh, I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. That was very unprofessional of me.” Her eyes landed on the two humans, and she managed to catch her breath well enough to restore dignified speech. “My apologies. Let me introduce myself formally. I am Admiral Tali’Zorah vas Normandy. It’s wonderful to finally meet you two.”

“Pleasure’s ours.”

“Nice to meet you, Admiral.”

She felt a little off-put by their tone. At first, she thought it was because she hadn’t gotten used to being referred to as ‘admiral.’ That was part of the truth. The other was their quietness. The fact that they answered with so little fanfare, and that the admirals had also thus far been quiet.

That’s when she turned their way and saw the vid log. She jumped, taken aback by the bleached, jutting teeth and blackened, frozen blood. “Oh. Oh no, what is-?”

“Isaac and John were just telling the other admirals about it, ma'am.” Kal’s boisterousness was notably muted. “It’s not pleasant stuff.”

Isaac shook his head. “No, it’s not. And it’s about to get worse. Admiral Zorah, what you’re looking at is called a necromorph. We were about to explain it to the board.”

“It almost looks human…”

Tali turned behind to hear John. “It used to be. Necromorphs are reanimated corpses. In the presence of a marker signal, dead tissue re-animates and becomes hostile. Tissue is re-arranged and re-purposed to make the cadaver a killing machine. It kills, and in the process, makes more corpses to infect.”

“That’s- wait, you said a _what_ revives them?”

Isaac rewinded the footage. Past the twitching beast, past the soldiers, past the gunship. Back to the dead of night, surrounded by snow, stone, and spires.

The twin pointed monoliths immediately brought horrible memories of dragon’s teeth up from the back of her memory. The way they pointed to the sky, jutting out in jagged lines like the bristling maw of some flesh-eating monster. “Those are markers? You said something about a signal?”

“Yes, and yes. It’s less of what you would call a conventional ‘signal’ – more of a signature. It gives off some form of energy. Some hoped it meant a solution for an energy crisis.”

“Including the government which I was affiliated with. They were working on some way to harness whatever that energy was. They forced Isaac to be part of it after he was rescued from the Ishimura mission.”

“The same signature has extreme adverse effects on the mind. People exposed to it experience different symptoms. Some see dead loved ones, mostly in visions in which the deceased start accusing you, blaming you for their death, for everything bad that ever happened between the two of you. Sometimes it just makes people violent. That’s how it all starts. People go crazy and kill each other. Then, when there’s enough dead bodies, they change and start walking again.”

Isaac resumed the footage. The convulsing, shaking corpse lunged at him, missing his head by a hair before a blue haze enveloped it. Now it had slowed, though only enough that fewer of its motions were simply blur. Its garbled calls were deeper and their tempo halved. Its shamble wasn’t as spastic, but by no means natural. Broken and reformed legs drove into the snow as it charged the engineer at otherwise normal speed before shots were fired. Loud, fizzling snaps and bright muzzle report were seen at the bottom corner of the screen, and white lines were seen on the monster’s knees and reformed ‘elbows’ as its limbs separated from its body in seeming slow motion relative to the beast. The haze faded, and what remained of the monster fell into the snow, dead.

“So, you’re a biotic?” Clinical curiosity oozed from Xen’s every word.

Isaac paused the log. “A what?”

“A biotic? Someone who can utilize eezo to manipulate mass and gravity?”

“I don’t know much more about that than what little I’ve read on my omni-tool, but no. That was my stasis module.”

“Your what?”

“Uh, let me see…“ Isaac scanned the room, looking for some loose article. “Admiral Zorah, could you hand John that PDA of yours?”

“Sure, but why?” it wasn’t an objection. She was already handing carver the device.

“John, toss that up real quick.”

“You got it.”

The PDA flew up to the overhead, but didn’t come back down. Isaac’s hand shot up, and from some sort of device on his left wrist, a ray of azure light shot out and hit the device, freezing its fall from meters per second, to millimeters. Every eye in the room but Carvers’ and Isaacs’ (who were checking the others’ reactions) had been fixed on it until, after a few fleeting seconds, the azure haze subsided, and the PDA plummeted back to the deck, right into Carver’s hand.

“I remember seeing the collectors use stasis with Shepard on our mission to Horizon, but they had to use massive swarms of smaller individuals to do it.”

Isaac shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that, but this works by basically targeting a space with what’s essentially slower relativity. If I hit you with this, you won’t feel slow – everyone else would just seem fast. That’s why that necromorph was so fast. He had a stasis module before death and when his flesh molded around it, his whole body was subject to faster relativity. Most necromorphs aren’t as twitchy as him.”

Carver pointed to a part of the beast’s tattered uniform. “See that emblem?” His finger lingered over the red SCAF emblem long enough for the others to catch it. “He was a soldier, hence why he had a stasis module. Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces. The Sovereign Colonies were a political entity comprising several human colonies who opposed one-world government. These guys were here because they thought the markers could give them an edge in their war against Earthgov.”

Koris’ hands clasped, thumbs rolling over and under each other. “And what happened to them?”

“Control breach. No matter how they tried to counter it, the marker signature drove them crazy and got them killing each other. Turned many into necromorphs. Soon as it started going downhill, they enacted some sort of scorched earth protocol – kill everyone and don’t let anything get back to Earth.”

Tali looked with pity on the torn corpse. ‘That’s awful… why were you there? Investigating their disappearance?”

“Kind of.” Isaac chuckled a little to himself. “I got shanghaied into it, didn’t I John?”

“Yeah, yeah…”

Raan’s curiosity was piqued. “Please, do go on. What did your mission entail? How was Mr. Clarke Involved?”

“Government tried going down the same path the SC did – try and use the markers for energy. They made multiple markers of their own. They made Isaac and others exposed to the signature into test subjects.”

Koris’ fear rang out as he shot up from his seat and pointed to the footage. “Wait, Clarke is affected by the same signal you both said starts all this madness?!”

“Relax. Get off his back, he’s fine. It affects different people different ways. People with a lot of mental fortitude don’t crumple up and turn into fruitcakes like others do. Some are able to push through it. Even block it out. The marker leaves codes in people’s heads. To weaker people, it just comes off as noise and drives you crazy. To others, it can be contained. Completely pacified. Even used. Me and Isaac both managed to do just that.”

“So, you and Clarke are **both** afflicted?!”

Gerrel was quick to defend them. “Admiral Koris, please. They seem perfectly compos mentis to me. Let them proceed with their testimony.”

“Gerrel, I was skeptical of all this until I saw the salvage team’s preliminary reports. Even less so when human remains were found. Every hour, more pieces are added to this puzzle and it keeps getting uglier. This is the ugliest piece yet!”

Isaac’s eyes were quickly glazing. “Alright, relax-“

“How do we know this signature isn’t latent in their-?!”

“-**_Relax!_** _Shit, just let us finish!_ Trust me, if it had any sway over us anymore, we’d both be raving and killing people. Does it look like we’re on that wavelength?!”

“…No.”

“Good. John, where were we?”

“Our mission. We sent in a reconnaissance team ahead of us to check the place out. When they didn’t report back, my CO opted to go looking for someone who could help us punch through any trouble and get to them. That’s when we brought Isaac in.”

“With a rifle butt to the face.”

“Come on, man. You’re not gonna keep hassling me for that, are you?”

“Nah you’re okay, John. I’m just giving you shit.”

That last part seemed lost on Tali. “Wait, so you didn’t give him a choice?”

Both sobered up fast. “No. We were completely out of options. You saw those two humans in the footage?”

“No? I must have missed it.”

“Here, let me rewind…” Isaac brought the log back to the enemy soldiers, clad in white arctic gear emblazoned with the red likeness of the marker on the sleeves and torso, shortly before the twitcher would come to rend them.

“Those guys. Unitologists. They believed the marker was divine. They breached all the testing facilities we had up, got the marker signal out of containment on every world we had them on and shit went down the tubes quick. We were scrambling for clues.”

Raan had a hand under her chin, her eyes returning to the log. “And you found one on this ‘Tau Volantis?’”

“It was the last loose string we could pull.”

“And what did you find when you got there?”

Isaac closed the log and scrolled through his archives. “Here.”

A dried corpse and a bulkhead covered in scrawl come on screen. Pressing play, they were entreated to a dreadful silence as Isaac shuffled towards the wall, tripping a little over a dried corpse before closing in on a whole mural of madness, myriad symbols written in dry, black, caked blood. Characters of some sort, surrounding and surrounded by images made in likeness to the marker. The ship was silent. Only Isaac’s breathing and hushed whispers could be heard.

_“Oh my god… “ _His breathing elevated, his eyes wandering the sanguine mural.

Then, footsteps and the sound of comms activating. _“Ellie, Carver. We’ve reached the Admiral’s quarters. Isaac’s-“_

_“Turn it off…. Turn it off. Tuurrn iiit oofff…”_

_“Hey, Isaac?”_

_“Turn if off… turn it off… **turn it off**…”_

A female voice came over Carver’s radio. _“Isaac? Carver, what’s going on?”_

_“Turn it off… turn it off…”_

_“Isaac? Hey…”_

_“Turn it off-“_

_“HEY!” _The camera shook with carver’s shove, and the woman on the comms came back.

_“What **is** it? What’s going on?”_

Isaac’s lucidity was back and audible. _“Nothing, nothing. Everything’s fine. Everything’s… fine.” _He came closer to the mural until the cracks in the long-congealed blood were visible to the audience._ “Ellie, the admiral was obsessed with making a key.”_

_“A key to what?”_

Isaac’s hand wandered over the scrawl, tracing the marker paintings to one central figure – some sort of tower buttressed by multiple columns. His silence prompted Carver to interject.

_“Hey! A key to what?!”_

_“Some sort of alien device; a… machine. I think that she believed that it controlled the markers?”_

_“Oh my God.”_

Nezala nudged Isaac from behind, keeping her voice down as best she could. “Is that Ellie?”

“Yeah…”

_“She wanted to turn it off. She wrote that over and over again, like a mantra.”_

_“Or instructions! This is exactly what we’ve been looking for!” _Brightness was there where sternness had been._ “This isn’t just some random planet, Isaac! They found the source! The marker homeworld!”_

_“You’ve got to be shitting me…”_

That little revelation put Isaac back in catatonics._ “Marker home world…”_

_“Alright, let’s meet in the control room. We can plan our next move from there!”_

The footage cut off, and questions followed immediately, starting with Xen. “Did you ever find this machine? What did it do? How did it work?”

“I can only answer so many of those, Admiral. We don’t know how it works – only the bare minimum needed to operate it. As for what it does, we junked that up completely. We thought we had to turn it off, but we wound up discovering that turning it off was what the marker wanted. The machine shut down the markers, and the Admiral’s visions were her succumbing to the marker’s will.”

Tali’s mind still lingered on her memory of Isaac’s entranced whispers. “How did you understand what it was saying on the wall?”

“Like Carver said, if you’ve got a strong enough mind, you can overcome the noise. The code it puts in your head never goes away, but the noise does if you can power through it, and when it does, you can decipher it anywhere you see it. When people who can’t take it are affected and they go nuts. It has to come out somehow – they chant it, scream it, write it all over the place with whatever the marker puts in their head, while people like me can decipher what they wrote, like with the Admiral Graves.”

“But you did find the machine? Did you use it?”

Whether it was exhaustion or relief on the men’s faces, it was hard to tell. “Yeah…. Yeah, we used it. Hold on.”

Isaac scrolled near the bottom of the index. He had only selected one last video before an error message popped up.

“Ah shit. Footage is corrupted.”

Carver looked on as Isaac worked to find a bypass. “Why’s that?”

“You remember I had no helmet at the end, John? My RIG got damaged. Maybe recording functions got gunked up too. Maybe it was the machine’s energy signature. I dunno…” The message disappeared. More static than usual obfuscated both the video and audio. “-but either way, Admirals, here’s the answer to your question.”

_“Isaac…” _It was Ellie’s voice again. Barely clear enough to make out. The picture was still too corrupted to see properly.

_“I turned by back on the world because I was afraid of what needed to be done. Ellie… “_

The picture cleared. A burned, frightened woman stood before Isaac, tears welling in her eyes.

_“I’m not afraid anymore.” _A tremor nearly sent them apart and would have done so were they not holding hands. They came back together and he pointed to his left, handing her a torn memento: a picture of him. _“There’s a shuttle over there. I want you to take it and head for home.”_

Yet more tears ran down Ellie’s cheeks. Another tremor shook them nearly to the ground again. Recoiling, they came into each other’s arms one more time, embracing, sharing one last kiss. Lingering, longing, both knowing that this was it, that one of them wasn’t going to make it. Isaac watched longingly, wondering, albeit only in the back of his mind, if it really was to be the last time.

_“Don’t come back for me! We both know I’m not going home! **Go!**”_

As she lingered, the admirals saw some great contraption behind her, arrayed in various tubes coming from some unseen precipice, leading into the obscured image of the Machine, its codex aglow with teal light. As Ellie fled, it could be seen and heard in full for a split second, humming and reverberating as some unknown power pulsated within it. It flashed back down again as Isaac longingly turned his gaze to the shuttle, to the one he loved riding her only ticket home to safety. Watching it in retrospect, he remembered his thoughts. _‘You’re safe now, Ellie…’_

And then, as the shuttle flew off, a glimpse, just a momentary glimpse of _something_ caught the quarians’ eyes. Something great and vast and awful, tendrils extending miles and miles down to meet the surface, a great, gluttonous, hungry maw whose low, clamoring, heart-stopping calls shook the air over the entire planet. It ducked from view as one more quake took Isaac to the ground, and the codex came into view before static once more took the imagery away.

Raan’s blood ran cold, choking out her voice. “Dare I ask what that was?”

“That was the final stage of the marker cycle. Convergence. All the biomass that’s been infected is brought up and conglomerated into one massive hive mind the size of a moon. That moon then proceeds to devour whatever biomass remains on the planet. That device you saw in front of me was the machine. And yes, we used it. We-“

He hadn’t been keeping track of the log. It was still playing, albeit silently. That was until sound came back, a sudden cacophony of ungodly screaming and wailing, loud and reverberating, overpowering senses even heard secondhand through a corrupted video. The image flashed a little, just enough that those three repulsive yellow eyes, that gaping, toothy maw, and all the tendrils and tentacles woven from rancid, dead flesh wrapping around the verdant machine, could be made out. Before the log closed, Isaac could be heard one last time.

_“You can’t have us.”_

The RIGlink display shut off, and the admiralty board, Kal, Nezala, and the guards were all left to their thoughts. Isaac and Carver could tell they needed a few seconds to digest.

Isaac judged that time for a few seconds, then spoke up. “That answer most of your questions?”

“Almost.” Tali shifted in her seat. “You… You did manage to stop it, right?”

“Yeah. Me and John stopped it. The glowing device in the middle of the machine is the Codex. It governs how the machine is operated. We used it, and it all came tumbling down... then we find ourselves here.”

“Mr Clarke?”

“Admiral Xen?”

The admiral activated her omni-tool, calling in some nearby detachment. “Those runes you showed us earlier, the ones you could read… are those found on the markers themselves?”

Something about that question made his eyelid twitch. “Yeah. Why?”

“The vessels we found on Cyone aren’t limited only to you and Mr. Carver’s crash sites. There were some vessels strewn in the intermittent space, though less concentrated. Near perfectly between you and Mr. Carver. One was the _CMS Brusilov_-“

“**_Wait, WHAT?!_**” Carver shot out of his seat, Isaac following suit. “What did you find there?!”

“Mr. Carver, please calm down-“

“No, no, no, he has every right to freak out! What the hell did you find on that ship?!”

“Mr. Clarke, we only found the remains from amidships to stern. We-“

A pair of marines entered the room, approaching admiral Xen with a heavy sealed case shared between them. “Here’s the geo sample we took from the Brusilov, Ma’am.”

“Me and Isaac were on that ship! There was a marker on board!”

“Admiral, you’re gonna tell us what’s in that case!”

“Excuse me?!”

“Admiral Xen, tell us what’s in that fucking case, right now. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“First of all, you need to recognize you are not the authority here. Second, we only found shards. It can’t possibly still be dangerous.”

“Yes, it can! When earthgov had me locked down, there was another patient like me with marker codes in his head. All it took to drive him insane was a shard, and he wound up trying to kill me and Ellie!”

Ever cautious for the fleet’s sake, Koris exploded at his fellow admiral. “I **_told_** you we should have left the wreckage alone until we got word from Clarke and Carver!! Now look what you’ve done!”

“Admiral Koris, calm yourself!”

“**No!!** Xen, you **_deliberately_** disregarded me! I told you there could be something dangerous on those ships, especially after we found the bones! Did you see what Clarke just showed us?! Do you have any idea what could happen to the fleet?!”

Tali let panic get the better of her. “How much more did you bring on board?!”

“That’s the only sample!”

“Move.” Isaac was already storming towards the head of the room where the admiralty was. Some of the guards drew weapons.

Raan clung desperately to what little foothold she had on the situation. “Isaac, please! Take your seat-“

“I need to see what’s in that case! John!”

“Yeah?”

“Open it with me. We’re both accustomed to the signal. We’ll both be able to hear it if it’s still there.”

Carver pointed at one of Kal’s marines. “Soldier! Open that case!”

“I-I can’t take orders from you-“

“You can take them from me!” Kal stood up alongside Carver. “Open it, corporal!”

“Belay that!” Xen tried, futile as it was, to assert her authority. “Belay that order! If this is dangerous, then-“

“Xen, don’t be stupid!” Gerrel had put up with the shouting match long enough. “Clarke, Carver, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

“Damn sure.”

“Corporal, open that case.”

A flash of the marine’s omni-tool, and the latches clanked open. The covering shot up, assisted by some hydraulic locking system. Isaac and Carver looked inside and felt their blood vessels come close to bursting. There they were. At least several dozen shards of that abomination suspended in what appeared to be a similar nano-matrix to what comprised an omni-tool. This one in particular made Carver’s pupils shrink. It had lured him to the Brusilov with Isaac in tow, dangling his dead son’s voice in front of him like bait before a hungry fish. The sight of it made him seethe.

Isaac snatched one, holding it before his eyes, scrutinizing it. Focusing it down, trying to get it to talk. All he got was silence.

“How many others touched it?”

“A handful from the survey group. They’re part of the Special Projects fleet, which is under my jurisdic-“

“Yeah, yeah, we get it. Jesus…” Carver took one up as well. He closed his eyes, bracing himself to hear his family as the marker’s guise again.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Hold on, Nezala…” The shard’s silence frustrated Isaac. He knew it had to be lying. It was still alive. It had to be. A shard like this put Stross in a straitjacket right alongside him. It couldn’t really be over.

“Isaac, how do we make sure whether they’re active? I don’t hear anything.”

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea. Admiral Raan, where’s the unitologist ship I was working on? The one with most of my stuff on it? Is it still planetside?”

“The one with the marker insignia? No, we took it in for salvage. It should still be very well intact. It’s aboard a ship on the-“

“That’s all I need to know. I’ve got my RIG synched with it.” He pulled up his holo-display again, tabbing to ‘synch – shuttle_vessel.’ From there, he could check up on a myriad of the ship’s functions. “the Unitologists who came hunting for us had to have a registry of the marker signature. They would need it to find more testing facilities to break open…. There!”

He had found it: a marker scanning function built from the ground up by Danik’s Circle. Some resentment for them pooled with ironic gratitude as he activated the function from his RIG. A score of scanning functions appeared on the display for all to see, catching any frequency on which the markers were known to broadcast. It felt like forever waiting. Watching for the tiniest blip to appear, for that dreaded report that there was something whispering, scheming, spreading its tentacles into the Flotilla.

When every report came back negative, flashing yellow and closing one by one, the two battle-weary men sighed a breath of relief, collapsing over the table and casting aside their shards.

Isaac had to keep himself from laughing. Some mingling hints of panic and relief were still vying with each other. “Okay... okay, never mind, we’re safe. It’s done.”

“Guess the machine just flat-out wipes the signature away.”

“Guess so..”

“Man, do you remember how many markers were in the city? Just imagine how many made it here.”

“Shit…Admirals, are you sure you didn’t recover anything else?”

“If there are any more markers, we don’t have possession of them, Mr. Clarke.” Raan’s collectedness had finally returned in full. “The Asari government on Cyone would be in possession of what salvage we did not take with us. Should we alert them?”

Carver had himself slouched back next to Tali. “Yeah, but you can put it in the backburner. This isn’t dangerous anymore, and from us that means everything.”

“Speaking of salvage-“ Part of it for Tali was to help cut the tension. Another was to scratch the itch for technobabble that had been building up the entire time. ‘I think I would like to get to my preliminary reports on the tech. Maybe after a recess?”

“Yes, I concur. We’ve all seen things in this meeting we were not expecting. I think we’re ready for a more positive take on the new and unknown, if what Tali’Zorah implies is true.”

“It’s all that and more. I’ve even forwarded some of my findings to Shepard and the Alliance and-“

“You did what?!” Gerrel flew out of his seat. It wasn’t anger, but fear in his voice. “Tali, you know how much I respect the Commander, but we’ve already gotten on the nerves of the Hierarchy and Thessia! The last thing we need is the Alliance trying to snoop around and-“

“Han, I’ve never tried to hide my feelings on our recent advancements towards Tikkun. You know I want Rannoch back, we all do. But I told you about Legion. I told you how it helped me and Shepard beat the collectors. We can take it back peacefully, and Shepard can help us, especially with this new tech at our disposal!”

“Tali, how dare you! You know we can’t-“

“I know that whether we fight or befriend the geth, we need Shepard’s help. I also know that we cannot hoard all this to ourselves when the reapers arrive. You know Shepard is right about them. We have to come together and help each other as best we can if we’re to stand a chance”

“Wait, wait, wait, the what?” Carver was quickly tiring of not being in the know, as was Isaac. “Kal, you told me about the Geth, but ‘reapers?’”

“Yeah, you didn’t tell me about this either, Nezala.”

“It’s big. Maybe not as nasty as what you’ve shown us, but it will be since they’re still a looming threat. I can give you more on it when we break for a recess, though I won’t know as much as Tali will.”

“Don’t worry Nezala. I’ll fill him in.”

Xen’s fingers fiddled with her hood. “Tali, didn’t you say Shepard was under house arrest?”

“She was, but they released her. It’s been a while since the Batarian relay, and now that refugees are pouring into the Citadel, people are getting scared. The Alliance included. She messaged me. Says she’s going to need the team back together.”

“Tali, you have responsibilities towards the fleet! You know we can’t lend firepower until our own house is in order!”

“Like I said, Admiral Koris, she can help us with that too. I’ve already went back and forth with her discussing possible plans for the immediate future.”

Raan reeled them in before any further arguments mired them. “We can discuss these things at length once we continue this meeting. We will resume in approximately three hours. The board will need the time to ruminate on what we’ve discussed so far. Isaac Clarke? John Carver?”

The two replied together. “Yes ma’am?”

“We thank you for what information you have shared with us, macabre as some of it may have been. We pray by the ancestors who preserve us that you may be preserved and protected, for the future of our fleet, and perhaps the entire galaxy hinges on what we can learn from you next. Peace be with you ‘till we meet again. Keelah se’lai.”


	6. Familiarization

The skies over Vancouver were grey, autumn storms cluttering the horizon and barely obscuring the afternoon sun. What light climbed over the clouds shone upon the many glistening towers of the Vancouver skyline, glittering against the eye. Civilian and Alliance craft could be heard and seen hovering about the sky in a passive display of the city’s bustling vitality. Elsewhere on earth, the sight was just the same, and just as beautiful. Despite the disparity between this and other, less developed cities on earth, it would be easy to see all this and say of Earth that is was going through a golden age.

From her personal quarters at the Alliance HQ, Shepard could almost enjoy the vistas, the towering skyscrapers serving as testament to mankind’s rapid progress of the past century. She could have, but only if her anxiety didn’t silently assure her that any day now, it would all come to naught. Six months since the Alpha Batarian relay in the Kite’s nest. Six months since Harbinger had made his ultimatum threatening death towards her, her crew, and her species. The destruction of that relay was only a delay. Their inevitability was inexorable from her mind, no matter how pristine the skyline, well prepared the food, and comfortable the accommodations which came with a relieved Alliance officer’s house arrest may have been. No telling how long her little setback operation would prove efficacious. No way to know how much longer until they decided to hit other edge relays, like Mactare or the Silean.

No way to know just how much time was left.

And all this time, the Defense Committee were no less hard headed than the Council had been. No official recognition of the reaper threat. No preparations made. No word of fleet mobilization, defense budget increases, nothing. Not even the most token measures taken regarding the certain eventuality of the Reapers. It drove her mad inside. Entire nights would be spent staring at the walls and ceiling with anticipatory dread and frustration, especially throughout the past week, and it showed in the bags under Shepard’s bloodshot, glazing eyes. Those eyes wandered about the cityscape, aimlessly hoping for some solace in absorbing the beauty, but the more she looked, the more she pictured it all in flames.

The opening door almost came like a rescue from the doom in her thoughts. The same familiar face who had seen her through her time grounded.

It was Lieutenant Vega, throwing up a salute. “Commander!”

“You’re not supposed to call me that anymore, James.”

“Not supposed to salute you either. Come on. Defense committee needs you.”

“What for?”

“It’s…” Deliberation belied his deflation. Shepard braced herself. “It’s about the batarian relay incident.”

She tried to mask her dismay with some levity as they headed out. “They finally decided to put me in the brig for good, huh?”

“No. Worse.”

“What could be worse?”

They were intercepted by another familiar face. “You being right.”

“Anderson?”

“Shepard. Good to see you. Come on, we need you at the defense committee.”

Exchanging a look at James, they followed the Anderson through the relatively calm traffic of the Alliance headquarters. “What’s this all about, Anderson? You told me a week ago they were reinstating me, but nothing’s been done. No one’s even told me why yet.”

“They wanted to triple check. There’s serious happenings in the Exodus Cluster.”

“Eden Prime?”

“Yes. Sizeable batarian traffic. Several dozen ships just show up without warning.”

For a moment, she almost scoffed at the possibility of being reinstated over a simple batarian raid before an immediate conclusion surged to the front of her mind and stopped her breath. Her heart skipped a beat. A familiar heat came burning in her temples.

“You know how they haven’t acknowledged the reaper’s existence?”

“I know where this is going… They’re here aren’t they?”

“’Here’ as in earth? No…”

More traffic as they passed a security door, nearing the committee room. Screens showing footage from Eden prime and multiple other outposts showed batarian civilians clinging to each other, frantically begging Alliance soldiers for help, medical aid, food, water, shelter.

“But for all intents and purposes, yes. They’re here, and that would mean Earth if it weren’t for you.”

“is that why they grounded me? Took away my ship?”

Anderson could sense her bitterness, but after what he had seen, there was little patience for pettiness. “You know that’s not true! When you blew up that relay, hundreds of thousands of batarians died!”

“You know we would be seeing all this here if I hadn’t!”

“I know… and the committee knows that too. That’s why they settled on today for your reinstatement, after this hearing at least.”

“And not a week ago when they told me?”

“It would normally be a few months, Shepard. You know how much red tape one has to duck through to put someone back on good graces when they’ve done something like blowing up a relay. The evidence we’ve gotten split some people at first until we saw more of what the Batarians were facing.”

Another familiar face turned up as they made their way through. His congenial smile was gone, replaced by nearly dead eyes. “Commander… “

“Kaiden!” Glad to hear his voice, but off put by his deadpan delivery, she had to ask more. “What’s going on?”

“Major.”

“Admiral Anderson.”

That sudden increase in rank raised Shepard’s eyebrow. “Major? Didn’t hear about this…”

“Sorry to keep you out of the loop, Commander. More developments came up and they’ve got us all preoccupied.”

“What do you mean?”

Anderson knew. It barely scratched past his decorum. “You haven’t seen the worst of it yet. How’d it go in there, Kaiden?”

“I don’t know how to tell you that, sir. On one hand, the refugees aren’t as numerous as we thought. On the other, that just confirms our fears.”

A receptionist behind Courtroom Access bade them. “Shepard, you’re good to go. They’re expecting you too, admiral.”

James shook the commander’s hand. “Good luck in there, commander.”

Past the hatch, a spacious and familiar courtroom where six months prior, she was subjected to disciplinary action. Now the same people indicting her were the same ones asking for help. Vindictiveness proved difficult to avoid.

It was more forthright than her previous visit; no calls to order, no introduction of committee staff, no list of charges to examine, nothing. Just a quick, frightened “Shepard! We’ve been hoping you could help elucidate recent events in the Exodus Cluster…”

Deep inside she knew what was lurking around the corner, but maybe, just maybe it was just a red herring. Maybe that delay at the Alpha relay would give them a few years. Maybe these people managed to escape the colony.

Or maybe her gut was right and everyone knew who those refugees were running from.

‘What’s the situation?”

“We were hoping you could tell us.”

Another attendee gave Shepard a PDA listing Alliance itinerary and events within the Exodus cluster from the past three days. The committee chair brought back her attention. “Multiple batarian refugees have been pouring in from Kite’s nest.”

“How many?”

“Not many at all actually. That’s part of why we contacted you. The fact that there’s so few is, in light of recent discoveries, far more disturbing than if there had been more.”

“It’s what they’ve been telling us that’s concerning.”

A screen to the left, compassing most of the wall, activated and played footage from the refugees. Not much more than what she had seen a few moments before, but this time in more detail – lurid, livid, unmarred by distance or preoccupation. Some were raving, ranting on how everything was doomed, and that no one could save themselves. Others crying for help, clinging onto alliance soldiers and begging that they contact their superiors, that aid be sent to Khar’Shan, to help their loved ones, their wives, husbands, children, all trapped by some horrible force that only a scant few of them could escape. Their cries were inexorable.

_‘There was so many! W-We couldn’t even fight just one of them!’ _

_‘Please! Please, you have to get help! The hegemony is gone! The fleet is gone! There’s no one left!’_

_‘We’re the only ones who made it… Everyone else is gone. Just one shot, and dozens of ships are cleaved in half…’_

_‘They blockaded the relay. It’s a miracle we’re even here.’_

_‘I never thought I’d say this but… we need you.’_

Any doubts left in Shepard’s mind had evaporated. The Alpha relay could have only bought them so much time. “You know what I’ll tell you-“

“You don’t need to tell us.” The committee chair was obviously trying to save face behind the apparent fear. “They’ve shown us.”

One more log appeared on screen, from inside a civilian ship. A family from a lower caste huddled near a porthole, unable to peel their eyes away from the scene. A soldier, their escort, had been recording. Ships could be seen to their port, all flying at light speed for but a few moments before stopping FTL drives and cruising. The stars were visible again, and the ships too, including a hegemony flagship, but only for a few haunting, quiet moments.

_‘All civilians, we are on approach to the mass relay. Remain calm and-‘_

The announcer had been cut off. Something bright and red and blinding tore through the flagship almost effortlessly. Screaming ensued as more scarlet beams pulverized the hegemony fleet, the vacuum of space permitting no noise from their destruction to drown out the people’s terror. One by one, more ships were melted apart, thousands of lives snuffed out in mere seconds. People could be heard screaming in their own native language, crying with faces plastered on the portholes as they watched people they knew go up in flames. The family near the recording soldier only watched silently. They knew no one on those ships, but their silent, wide-eyed dread belied the fact that the people they thought could protect them were all being picked off in bushels of a thousand or more at a time, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

Another voice, this time from the civilian ship’s audibly younger captain. _‘Everyone brace! We’re almost to the relay! We can slip the blockade!’_

The family huddled, praying in their own tongue for safety and giving the soldier room to maneuver in to get near the porthole. The blue glow of the mass relay was fast approaching, but the screaming and the crying hadn’t stopped. Neither had the incoming fire.

Now everyone could see where it was coming from. As the relay came into view, so did the assailants. Thousands of them, almost enough to completely block the view of their only escape.

The Reapers.

Their towering forms unleashed jets of molten metal from underneath their chassis, rendering any ship that got too close into burning hulks of steel. The remains of the larger ships, aflame and bisected, flew still with momentum past the ancient machines. The flagship’s bow, itself alone half the size of an alliance dreadnought, flew dead past one of them. It was a mere speck, barely the size of one of the monstrosity’s limbs, burning as it crashed into another of the old machines, which barely flinched at the fiery remains slamming into its hull. More scarlet light, closer this time and from the starboard, getting the soldier to turn to see and hear more passengers screaming at the sight of refugee ships going up in flames all around them.

_‘Almost there! Everyone hang on!’_

The relay was visible now, if but partially blocked by the sight of a legion of those horrible machines. Some were looking their way now, their gaze inciting weeping and wailing. That familiar blue mass effect field could be seen enveloping the ship. The enemy could be seen staring them down, beams glowing, priming their shot.

_‘Precision jumping in 3, 2, 1!!’_

The footage froze where the soldier had sopped recording. The committee remained speechless, knowing beforehand, but now afresh with that same horror that took them when those screams first landed on their ears.

“They’re right on our backdoor…” The committee collectively swallowed their spit when they saw Shepard’s pupils become pinheads. “You had better tell me you have some sort of plan of action.”

“We were hoping you could tell us.”

“Me?! I warned everyone back when Sovereign and its Geth were mounting an attack on the Citadel. That was three years ago. Three years to at least try and amass defenses, come up with evacuation contingencies, organize backup colonies, but now? We have anywhere from months, to days, to **hours** before the Reapers do exactly to us what you have seen them do to the batarians. Three years, and has anyone but me, Hackett, and Anderson done or said anything?!”

“Shepard, please.” Anderson knew he could only keep her at bay for so long. “They’re just scared. Guilt tripping them won’t solve anything.”

He was right and she knew it and she hated it. The committee were scarcely the only people in her crosshairs and there was plenty of blood and thunder to mete out here and now, but those images of screaming families watching everything around them burn brought the pertinence of the situation back to mind, so she grit her teeth, bore it, and cleared her storming head as best as she could.

“We only have so many options. The only thing we can do now Is fight or die.”

One chairman took issue with such a barebones response. “That’s it? That’s our plan?”

“We don’t have much more. Some of you may have been there when Sovereign attacked the citadel. You remember how much firepower it took to bring it down. You remember how many we lost trying to save the Destiny Ascension. That was just one. We won’t be able to fight them on our own when they come to earth, and they will come – we’re next in line once they’re done with the Batarians.”

“Then we just sit here and wait to die?!”

“No. The council didn’t listen before, and to be fair, neither did you. That’s all about to change. I imagine most of this intel hasn’t passed beyond Alliance eyes and ears yet?”

“Not yet, no. We were debating on whether or not we would inform the Council of- “

“Not anymore. The fight is coming here first, and if Kar’Shaan is any indication, it’s going to be a slaughter unless we band together. The Alliance fleet stands no chance alone. We need the other Races here to help us fight. We need the Turians’ fleet. We need the Salarians’ technical expertise. The Asari’s resources. The Krogans’ brawn. The Quarians’ firepower. The destruction of the Alpha relay means they can’t be everywhere at once anymore. It’s the only advantage we’ve got, and if we can pull together as many races as we can, if we can stand together against them, then maybe, just maybe, we might be able to capitalize on that advantage.”

“Though things have calmed down since the first contact war, I still doubt the Turian Hierarchy would be so willing to lend aid.”

“The Krogan are nobody’s friends, and no one’s formally heard from the Quarians for months.”

“And what if they get past us? Say we amass a respectable defense that can at least partially repel them – what if they just choose to turn back, use the relay and assail the rest of the galaxy? How will the others defend themselves when they’ve got everyone here?”

All these nagging doubts did little to faze Shepard’s resolve. “I never said it was a perfect plan, but right now, it’s all we have, unless any of you can come up with anything better?”

Their silence was all she needed, or wanted, to hear.

Anderson could never get tired of her fire. “I can propose at least one more thing.”

“Yes, Anderson?” She knew what he had in mind. She only needed to hear it.

“An immediate reinstatement.”

“And the Normandy?”

“All yours when we’re done here, far as I’m concerned.”

“Crew?”

“Already stationed.”

“Sounds like a done deal.”

The higher ups sitting above them didn’t take well to taking the backseat. “Admiral Anderson, that’s hardly your call alone.”

“And I suppose while the reapers are breathing down our necks, you’re going to take another six months to give me clearance to reinstate? Shepard is right. We have absolutely no time to waste.” He took out a pair of freshly printed dog tags from his dress blues, exchanging a look with Shepard. “I don’t think the commander has any problems skipping the ceremony.”

“None at all.”

He turned back to them, dog tags in hand. “I only need your say so. All the necessary paperwork can be done within the hour.”

Their hesitation was palpable, but a few stolen glances to those screens and the fire and the turmoil and the colossal foe shown thereon, and whatever reservations they had instantly evaporated. The chairman stood. “Is there anything else we need to discuss?”

“I need my people. Liara, Garrus, Tali, Wrex, whoever I can that could help me get the ball rolling. You all mentioned the races not cooperating with each other. I can’t fix every centuries-old grudge they have with each other, but I’m close enough to all the right people. They can help us wrangle people in.”

“I’ll get word to the council.” Anderson added. “I may have stepped down from my seat, but Udina and the rest of them need someone to help link up coordination for defense between our militaries and the council’s. I’ll do what I can to keep everyone’s head on straight. Hackett already has us maintaining perimeters, especially around the Charon relay. I’ll get word to him on the situation.”

The chairman nodded. “Excellent. Admiral Anderson, you have our approval to reinstate. Commander Shepard, the Normandy will be waiting at the docking hangar. Everyone, if that will be all, this meeting is adjourned.”

The Admiral tossed the Commander her tags, and they disappeared under her blouse as the two left the room.

Personnel now bustled all around the complex, weaving around Anderson and Shepard as they made their way to the dock. Shepard was fiddling with the chain or her tags, fingertips sliding along its beadwork. “So, seeing as most of my incoming messages have been intercepted by Alliance MPs, is there anything I should know before we saddle up?”

“Oh yes. Liara has been working under Hackett. She’s been stationed on the Mars archives. Says she may have found something that can help against the reapers.”

“Then she’s top priority. Migrant fleet next.”

“I’ll assume that means you got something from Tali before the committee locked it all down again?”

“Yes. No one’s heard from the Admiralty Board proper, but Tali messaged me. Poor girl’s got her plate full. They made her an admiral in her father’s stead, planned to go to war with the geth, and now, they’ve found some crazy new tech on Cyone. Some sort of ship scrapyard she says if full of stuff centuries ahead of us. That’s all that I have though. You get anything else?”

“Garrus made some noise on Palaven. Apparently the Primarch has given him a task force to set up anti-reaper defenses and prepare the planet for war. It’s only token though and everyone knows it, so he’s been hoping to-”

“Then Palaven is our first stop. We back Garrus up when the Hierarchy-“

“I thought you said Liara and her find were priority?”

It was just the slightest thing, but she caught that little inflection, that fraction of a leer, and that tiny hint of a smirk that tipped Shepard off and made her wish she could fight off the blood rushing to her cheeks. “Yeah I… I did. Shit. Anderson, who blabbed?”

“Hmmhmmhm.” A little chuckle belied that mature sense of doting towards her. “Oh, a man of as many years as me has his ways of finding out. Though I’ll say right now, Liara is pretty loose lipped for someone in her line of work.”

“_Goddammit, girl…”_

“Oh, don’t chew her out too hard. Garrus’ first missives before he knew the details of your house detention gave it away too. It’s alright. Garrus is a good man, fraternization policies be damned.”

“…”

The teasing was out of his system. “Hey. I know you care about him, but he’ll understand. There’s a lot going on out there right now, and you’ve got to pick your priorities carefully. He knows that. Besides, the two of you can keep in contact now.”

“It’s better than nothing, I suppose. Anything from Legion?”

“You mean that geth unit you recruited? That thing still gives me the wrong vibes. Either way, it returned back to the Perseus Veil after you were grounded.”

“We’re going to need him. Tali says she’s trying to delay the Admirals and their war, but she’s running out of time.”

A staff member hailed Anderson and handed him a PDA. “Well, speak of the devil. Another message from her. Looks like they found two humans in that scrapyard that she says might pique your interest.”

“How so? Names?”

“Isaac Clarke and John Carver.”

____________________

Isaac’s hands were busy digging into the back of Carver’s RIG, every now and then unleashing a spark or two as a pair of pliers worked to free up space to gain access to the damaged junctions, his own RIG projecting a magnification. “Shit, John. The hell did you do to this thing?”

Carver had helped himself to the floor, not wanting to chance ruining what little high-class furnishings adorned the room. “I don’t know man. Maybe it was the fall.”

“Well, it’s gummed up harder than I thought. Power distribution is fucked. It’s not the end of the world, though.” His fingers emerged from the RIGs spine and dove back into his toolbelt. “Tali, did you see where I put my soldering paste?”

“It’s to your left, behind you.” Isaac’s hands had barely emerged when she approached. “Actually, do you mind if I give it a try?”

“You don’t suppose you’d know how to fix it, do you?”

“No, but who says I can’t learn? Here, let me see.”

They were a separate compartment, some distance astern from the delegation chamber, in what was called the Admiral’s Deck. Separate quarters for five admirals sat behind a commons area, which Tali, Isaac, and Carver had momentarily for themselves while the other Admirals carried on in Logistics, collecting data from other details of the Cyone mission. It was more or less a lounge made for the Admirals and maybe a few guests. A vidscreen and other somewhat high-end media devices to port, dining area and bar to starboard (complete with mixed-species accommodations and supplies), all centered around a lounge area with sofas and other furnishings; basically, all the stock fare one would expect to find from a ruling body living on a relatively shoestring budget.

She took Isaac’s place, leaning over Carver with notably less concern for personal space, practically leaning her side into him with her left leg bracing his back while she took a look at the undone soldering. “Uh, that’s a little close, Admiral.”

“Oh, sorry.” She backed up a little, taking to her knees. “We’re not as used to the human concept of personal space. Things are a bit cramped here, so we don’t think much of it… okay, so what am I looking at?”

“Right there, just got it opened up. Power distribution. You see where it’s burnt out?”

Few eyes but those of an avid engineer could make out the minuscule junction box from all the myriad wires, circuits, and other alien hardware. “I think so. I see some impaction damage too.” Her omni-tool illuminated the damage. ‘Where do we start?”

“Most junctions are intact. It’s just the ones leading to holo-display and comms. See where they branch out?”

“I see it… I’ve got a soldering option on my omni-tool that can probably get it fixed.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t advise that.” Carver’s eyes still faced the floor, robbing them of a chance to see them become dinner plates.

“Why not?”

“You kind of need a RIG to fix a RIG. You know how we operate these, right?”

“No, I didn’t see you use any voice commands to bring anything up during the meeting.

“John, pop your collar a little.”

“Sure.” He undid the first fastener, allowing them a view of the RIG’s inner hardware.

Tali’s eyes were met with a series of matte, interconnected metallic plates lining the nape of carver’s neck and along his shoulders, some hidden under the white fabric of his undershirt. The base of his neck was covered by what appeared to be the main apparatus, connecting to the external RIG through a series of wires. It actually reminded her of her own biosuit just a little. “I’ll hazard a wild guess and say this is some sort of neural link?”

“Yep. It basically links up to your somatic nervous system and lets you take control of its functions. Once you’ve had one for a while, it’s more or less like using any of your own limbs. Opening your log doesn’t feel too different from using your hand to grab or pick up something. Kind of why I’m a little paranoid about you using something other than another RIG that can detect exact junctions without sending any surges of power back through the wrong systems.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel like having any seizures today, thanks.”

“Wait…” Orange light clad Tali’s arm anew and neither of the two men knew whether or not to stop her. “You mean these junctions?” Tali brought up a diagram on her omni-tool, bearing the auto-generated title of ‘UNKNOWN DEVICE -HARDWARE EVALUATION.’ “I don’t know which one is for the holographics and which one is for communications, but it seems they run on the same input port.”

“Yep, that’s the neural link…”

“Output ports run on the same circuit until it branches out riiigghhtt… there.”

“Comms and display. Whenever you use RIGlink, it’ll usually come up with an oscilloscope graphic.”

“There’s a third channel that intercepts it too…”

For once, Carver had at least some idea of what that was. “Probably the low-profile function. I can make it so there’s no graphic when I initiate comms, otherwise you could give away your position in a combat situation.”

“Shit that’s right, this thing is mil-spec.”

Carver was still facing the floor, so reading his uncomfortable facial cues was hard to do while she leaned in closer. “I think I can fix this! I don’t know how familiar you are with eezo tech, but my omni tool can take what solder is there, add new flux and re-solder the entire junction by via mass effect field.”

So far impressed with Tali‘s initiative, Isaac conceded. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s see it.”

As Tali magnified her view of the damage, carefully operating her omni-tool’s disc interface, she was starting to wish it had a neural link as well. The hardware was alien enough that her tool couldn’t fix it on a ‘fire and forget’ basis. She couldn’t just press the button and let the computer figure out what lines to take when re-soldering. She had to do it all by hand, guiding the mass effect field generator and fabrication module. One mistake and she could put Carver into intensive care. This wasn’t her first rodeo though. She had been tinkering with things she barely understood since she got her first suit, and after all this was just one junction repair. The burnt solder was already being replenished with new flux at just about the same pace her panicked thoughts were subsiding. Now her tool read that power was flowing through the junction, and Carver hadn’t yet collapsed into a convulsing mess, so something had to have gone right. Only one way to make sure.

“Okay, I think I got it!”

“John, try calling me.”

Using it was reflex at this point. “Hello? Anyone there?” And sure enough, the familiar chirp of the RIGlink logo came up, along with that familiar oscilloscope over both Isaac and Carver’s shoulders. “HEY! There it is!”

“Well shit, good work, Tali! That looked tricky without tracking.”

“Thanks. I’ve been dying to get the chance to do more though. Ever since we brought the first load of salvage up, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it all."

“You know, I think I can help with that. What did you find?”

Those last three words hadn’t even left his mouth, and the way her silver eyes lit up from behind that mask told him he had just opened Pandora’s box.

“Oh Keelah, I’ve been waiting for this! I have so many questions on-“ Tali turned to hear the crackling of synthetic leather to see Carver had decided to claim one of the sofas. “… What’s he doing?”

The ennui on his face said it all. “I’m just sitting this one out. You guys do your thing.”

“…Anyways, I’ve been tinkering around with some of the things we found aboard those ships we pulled up, and it’s incredible! Some of the soldiers’ suits had a little gravity manipulator-“

“A kinesis module?”

“Is that what it’s called? Anyway, we also found more of those stasis modules like the one you showed us, and more RIGs like the one you’re wearing, but they’ve got their own propulsion system!”

“Like mine?” Isaac made no effort to hide his smirk as he lifted his leg and calibrated the control flaps on his shins and calves.

“Oh… well, the biggest find we made was when we looked in the engine rooms of each ship, as far as they were preserved, and when we didn’t find any eezo drive cores, we got confused. Maybe they were made only for in-system travel? Maybe it was all pre-relay craft, but none of the Asari or human archives gave us any matches. That’s when we dug through one of the older ships. Its computers were still functional, and through hardware scans, we were able to find ways to start emergency power. The ship was no longer flightworthy, but we were able to pull up the nav systems, and, to our shock, it could go anywhere without a relay! It had made trips to points in the galaxy that we can’t even reach! We looked at the unitologist shuttle and got a lot of similar finds – just no hint on how it gets that far without a relay. We’ve taken the engines apart, but we couldn’t find-“

“The shockdrive?”

“The what?”

“That’s what we use to ‘shock out’ from place to place. Trips of several thousands of lightyears take a few hours.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it… do you not have relays where you’re from? This is so incredible! I mean- “

“Okay, easy-“

“-are you telling me you can go anywhere with those ships?! Is extragalactic travel possible?!”

“_Easy-_“

“How do you do it without eezo?! How does it manipulate hypersurfa-?”

** _“-Tali, easy!”_ **

Miraculously, she managed to put the brakes back on her mouth. For a moment, she cowered back, thinking she had annoyed or angered him, but a tired, faint smile eking along the edges of his lips assured her otherwise. “Oh, sorry.”

“it’s alright, just take a deep breath-“

“I just got excited and I there’s just so much new information that it’s got me freaking out and-“

“-Tali, are you listening?”

“-when I freak out, I start babbling and it’s a defense mechani - hm?”

“Relax. Take a deep breath.”

A quick little inhale, but it was token. It was fear of looking stupid that was forcing her to wind down. “Okay, okay, I’m relaxed.”

“Remember to check your blood pressure, get plenty of rest-“

There it was; that slight chuckle and poor attempt to hide a smile that told her he was making fun of her. Pride was in its death throes as she tried not to laugh along. “Okay, Isaac…”

“I’m just giving you shit, Tali. You’re fine.”

“I know.”

“Now, if you’re done having a nervous breakdown, I can-!”

Both were laughing through their teeth. “Oh Keelah, come on!”

“-I can answer all your quest-OW!”

It wasn’t her hardest hit, but a little smack to the side of the head rarely hurt anybody. “That’s what you get you Bosh’tet!”

“You and Nezala just love hitting me…”

“She’s been rubbing off on you way too much, I can tell…” It wasn’t splitting her sides or anything, but it was more than any other chance she had to laugh since before the Collector Base, so she took just a second to let it marinate and appreciate it. “Anyway, I think I’m ready.”

Isaac was letting it simmer down as well. “Yeah, okay. Shockdrives, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’ll take me a week to show you how to run, maintain, repair, or replace one, but I think I can boil down the basics. What it does is create negative mass to form a bubble of an abridged hypersurface around the ship. This bubble is called shockspace. Now, getting from place to place isn’t as simple as just entering shockspace and driving to your heart’s content – you might fly into a star or an asteroid field or something. Preset coordinates have to be set and installed into the shockdrive computer, and back home- “ There was just the slightest pause. ‘back home’ sounded so weird to say. “ -we had whole facilities dedicated to finding general areas where exit vectors could be made, coordinates could be downloaded, all that jazz. That’s pretty much the general gist of it. We can get to all the ugly specifics later when we’ve got more time and people, but yeah. That’s about it. If you want a demonstration, we can get the unitologist shuttle back to spaceworthy condition. Might take about two, three weeks to…”

He noticed he had been too caught up giving the answers to see how they were being received. Tali was awestruck. Completely silent with her eyes wandering aimlessly as her mind was too busy wandering on its own to keep tabs on them,

“That’s… are you sure you don’t need eezo to do it?”

“I’ve heard that word a billion times now. What is it, Exotic matter?”

“it creates fields that manipulate the mass of any object it effects, so technically yes. Does a shockdrive use that?”

“No, the shockdrive fabricates its own exotic matter that creates a field of negative mass around the craft. When it de-shocks, the exotic matter immediately dissipates.”

“Wow… and all in the confines of your own ship. We need Relays that are several kilometers long to make a tunnel of abridged space for us, then travel through the mass effect field with the aid of a proper drive core. We can’t go anywhere where there isn’t a nearby relay.”

“Sounds pretty inefficient.” He noticed she was a lot less expressive now. More freaking out for sure, but no babbling or excitement, and that warranted concern. “Tali, are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah…”

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot to process-“

“Isaac… if what you’re saying is true, then you’ve just changed the future of the whole galaxy. Every civilization that has yet found a nearby relay, Earth included, has lauded that moment as the day the future finally came… and in thirty seconds you just overshadowed all of it.”

She collapsed into a chair behind her as Isaac stood by, awkwardly awaiting her to slip back out of her catatonics. “Uh, Tali? You’re not gonna freak out anymore, right?”

“I don’t know. I thought I had gotten it all out of my system. I mean, we were already freaking out when we saw the voyage data and no drive cores, and that could’ve have meant only a few things but… It’s so surreal to actually see our hunch was right.”

“Well, I can have someone get you some ice water if it helps.”

“Har har…” She had accepted the fact that he was going to tease her. Now to accept that the mass relays that serve as the backbone of galactic society were soon to be rendered obsolete. “Isaac, I’ll tell you, I’ve seen some crazy things during the past three years. I just wish you knew more about them. Giant ships looming over the citadel, the remains of what we thought as an extinct race, enslaved and turned against us, dying stars…. This is the craziest by far. If only Shepard were here to see it firsthand.”

“I’ve heard you mention her a few times. She someone important?”

“Oh, you have no idea. You remember when I introduced my ship name as ‘Vas Normandy?’”

Carver was barely managing to sit up on his sofa. “That’s right, Kal told me about ship names. You get them when you’re back from ‘pilgrimage’ or whatever. That some human ship you guys bought?”

“No, the Normandy isn’t part of the fleet. It was actually meant to be a kind of smear against me when they gave me that ship name. It’s Commander Shepard’s ship. She’s human. Alliance military. Three years ago, she saved my life and billions of others in the process. She might have to do it all over again though. The whole galaxy is about to know why, and in the meantime, they’re still figuring out whether or not she’s still under house arrest.”

“Think you’ll hear back from her soon?”

Isaac’s question caught Tali’s chagrin. “Keelah, I hope so. Admiral Anderson told me yesterday that she’d be reinstated for good come today. I just hope he’s right.”

“She about to pay us a visit?”

“I’m hoping she will. It’s been too long. She says she’s bringing the whole team back…” Nostalgia swallowed her almost as effortlessly as her sofa. “I get so tired of all the bureaucracy and bickering here. If I didn’t have to fill in my father’s shoes and try and put a leash on all these overgrown children, trying to stop them from killing us all in some stupid, hopeless war, I’d be back in a heartbeat.”

Carver still felt lost. “What exactly did you guys do together?”

A tired chuckle scraped past her vocoder. “Believe me, we’d be here for days if I went over everything.”

The hatch opened, and Nezala’s familiar, armored frame came sauntering through it, stiffening only to throw a quick salute at Tali before relaxing again. “I think she’d be willing to give you guys a rundown. Admiral, we have someone waiting for you in the vidcom room. SSV Normandy SR-2 is hailing on all open channels”

Tali’s eyes perked up, and she rose just to make sure she heard that ship’s name right. “Shepard?!”


	7. Apprehensions

“God, it’s been forever… the past six months have been hell.”

“I imagine they have. I wish I could have been there. You know I would have tried, but Anderson’s probably told you how many visitation requests I sent before Alliance told me not to bother.”

“At least twenty, he told me.”

Hackett’s scores of new improvements and additions to the War Room had been Shepard’s focus just an hour ago, but now, there was nothing else in the room but her and Garrus. Just his voice. His familiar, scarred, noble face. His charm. Nothing but _Him._

If only he weren’t so many light years away.

“Twenty-seven… dammit Shepard, the last thing I want you to think is-“

“You’re fine, Garrus.”

“- that I’d forgotten or that I wasn’t taking us seriously or-

“Hey, it was my idea in the first place, remember? Besides, I understand, even if you could have only sent ten.”

“You spoil me.”

“I try.”

“I just wish we had more time to talk about something other than the reapers. Something other than the storm we all already know is coming. That’s all anyone in the Hierarchy is going to be talking to me about for the foreseeable future.”

“At least now people are listening.”

“And yet it’s a day late and a credit short. It’s funny. Months ago, I would have redoubled my efforts to get them to listen if I knew it was this close.”

“Palaven needs someone to steer it right, and now they’ll see why.”

“Anderson forwarding that intel to the Hierarchy got things moving, that’s for sure. But that’s not the first thing on my mind right now.”

She knew, but she still felt she had to ask. “What is?”

“… Remember right before we hit Omega 4, Shepard?”

The memory was lurid and vivid and bringing all sorts of tones to her face she hoped weren’t visible over vidcom. She did a double take, just to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. “What part?”

“Right after. Before we had even started, after you turned off the music and held me close, every thought in my head pointed to one question and that was ‘does this mean anything?’ I saw the way you looked at me and I wanted more than anything for the answer to be yes.”

“You never asked me…”

“I was so afraid of hearing ‘no’ that it just didn’t come out. I remember when you first made a move and the way you put it sounded so casual. Tawdry even. I didn’t know what to make of it. Had I been attracted to you? More than I ever expected to be to a human, at least. And did I respect you? I told you I respected you more than anyone in the Galaxy and I meant every word a thousand times over…”

Of all the things she had expected to feel when talking to him, guilt wasn’t one of them, and the possibility that she had made Garrus feel disposable and used dropped her heart into her stomach. “Garrus I just-”

“So, when it was all said and done and sheets were still covering us and you said, ‘I love you…’”

She remembered it too. She meant it. She knew she meant it. It only stung her all the more on remembering just how casual she had been about it because that’s just how she saw it at first. That’s what hurt the most. She loved him and it tore her looking back to before she discovered that love in earnest. When it was just her curiosity and attraction. Before it was reminiscing on his past on sleepless nights, growing all the more worried about him. Before feeling more and more of a need to heal him, to let him know there’s at least one person in his life who hadn’t thought of him as a failure. Before blushing at his quips and wanting to comfort him when he spoke of Sidonis or C-Sec or his father…

Garrus could see that pain on her face and he knew he had to take that away – God forbid he fail to do so if he ever was the cause. “… I knew I had my answer and I had it for good. I didn’t have to ask.”

“I never should have made you feel as if you had to ask in the first place.”

“You’re alright, Shepard. It’s okay. In the end, I don’t think it was necessary. Like I said, I have my answer, and I wouldn’t give it away for anything in the galaxy.”

Now it was hard to look him in the eye and he technically wasn’t even in the room. “I’m sorry I gave you any doubt, Garrus. God, I’m so sorry-“

Her body language was screaming where she had been staying subdued, and now Garrus was trying as calmly as he could to assuage her fears without breaking himself, giving in to fears that he had sounded reprimanding or spiteful. “Shepard, you’re fine. Like I said, you don’t have to prove anything to me and you never will… and if I may, that finally takes me to my point.”

“Yes?”

“What I’ve been thinking about past the paperwork and the resource managing and the imminent danger hanging over our heads… I want a future, Shepard. I want a future with you. I’ve been wanting it, and now it’s all hanging by a thread. Not because of infidelity or some big argument we got into, but because now the whole Galaxy is at stake and we don’t know just how many tomorrows we have left. I want to ensure I can enjoy whatever time we can, even if it’s between storms of bullets.”

“I was just about to ask. How are you going do that while advising the Primarch? I was hoping maybe we could set up regular communications with Palaven right here in the war room, unless you had any other ideas?”

“Well, my knowledge about reapers was what got me into this position, in the Primarch’s eyes at least. Honestly, I had little more to tell than our fight against the human reaper and intel they already had from fighting Sovereign – sounding the alarm was my primary goal, really. All I had to do was find someone I could transfer all my files to, and I found just the guy. General Adrien Victus. Lifetime military. Popular with his men. I’ll still be in touch with the Hierarchy, advising any reaper-related decision, but as far as I’m concerned? I’m ready to see what Admiral Hackett’s done with the Normandy.”

Shepard let loose the slightest breath of relief. The last six months without him had been hard enough. “Hackett was ready to use it as a mobile command center for the entire Alliance fleet. You’d be surprised how much he’s done with it,”

“Sure looking forward to how much better they were at calibrating the guns, that’s for certain. And-“

“Yes?”

“ - I’m ready to kick ass with you again, Shepard. Wherever that takes us. And above all… I want that future with you. Whatever I have left, I want it to be with you.”

“I’ll get to you as soon as I can, Garrus.”

Joker’s voice came crashing down on their distant reunion faster than either had anticipated. “Commander, the Migrant Fleet’s lightbeaming back. Frequency is from their envoy ship. They’re ready to receive traffic.”

Shepard mouthed a few obscenities, simultaneously cursing how little time she had and dreading the possibility of Joker or EDI hearing any of her and Garrus’ intimate talk. “Duty calls…”

“Looks like you have to go, but I do have one more piece of good news, Shepard.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve already made preparations with Hackett’s aides. They’ll be receiving me at the Mars archives around the same time you’ll be there. About a day or two, and we’ll be face-to-face again.”

“I wish we had more time to catch up, Garrus.”

“Me too. But right now, Tali’s got her hands full, and she’ll need you to handle the Geth.”

“And the Admirals… God I hate politics.”

“I was there with you and Tali during her trial. I won’t lie, it sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate.”

“I know I do.”

“And I know you can handle it. Saren, the Collectors, and now the Geth are next in line. You’ve got this, Shepard.”

“I’ll see you soon, Garrus.”

“You too.”

___________

“…She always ten minutes late?”

“I just got info from Joker that she was just talking to Garrus. He’s got a lot to handle on Palaven, I imagine.”

The Admiralty didn’t take as much of a shining to Tali’s answer as Isaac did, Admiral Xen least of all. “She was late to your hearing as well. Do humans have some sort of a knack for tardiness?”

“Xen, calm down. We’ve already got confirmation that the Normandy is lightbeaming back. She’ll be here.”

Then the holograph display flickered and Tali could swear she could feel her back cracking itself straight as the burden of occupying her colleagues was taken from her shoulders. There she was, half a galaxy away yet right in front of her for the first time in the better part of a year. Even through the holographic fuzz, she could make out the newest additions to the bags under Shepard’s eyes and the glaze that came with them. If the graphics drivers on the projector could be upgraded, Tali was sure she would have seen grey hairs mixing with her familiar red.

However excited and relieved she had been to see her, it was only barely making it past her two days with four hours of sleep and endless salvage examination. “Shepard! It’s so good to see you again.”

“You too, Tali! You sound like you’ve been put through the ringer.”

“And you look it. Reinstatement going smooth?”

Shepard rubbed her eyes and felt the slack in her skin. “You noticed, huh? Reinstatement’s official now, yes, but it’s the circumstances giving me the facelift. You said you have something interesting on the flotilla?”

“Well, mostly the fleet’s two newest guests.” Tali waved the two men over to the compad. “Shepard, I’d like to introduce you to Isaac Clarke and John Carver.”

“Pleasure to meet you, commander.”

“Ma’am.”

She took a second to examine what she could over the light years of distance interfering with the details. Both men, in their forties. Faces tired, one with considerably darkened patches around the eyes. The other scarred on one side of his face. Used ‘Ma’am’ to address her. He’s the military one she spoke about and it showed in his parade rest. Isaac was simultaneously easy and hard to read. Boilerplate greeting, but a lot of sincerity on his face, masked by fatigue and wear. Only reminded her of how much older she herself was getting. Not enough information to make a complete read, but it would come in time.

She brought up a PDA with a brief overview of the Cyone Mission’s findings “Pleasure’s all mine. Tali’s told me a lot about you two.”

“Like what?”

“Well, Sergeant…” She scrolled through Tali’s message, skimming anew the relevant details. “She tells me that you’re former military, just not Alliance or Cerberus or any known Earth-affiliated group. Sounded a little far-fetched until I got to the part where her team found a bunch of crashed ships with no drive cores, along with an Engineer who may be able to help everyone work their heads around them.”

Isaac caught her eyes making contact. Her stare would probably have been no less paralyzing in person. “And I’m guessing that brings it back around to me.”

“We have a winner.”

“Not yet you don’t!” Koris stormed onto the compad and Shepard was immediately reminded of his performance at Tali’s trial, with little enthusiasm for an encore. “Admiral Zorah, you leaked the Preliminary Reports to the Alliance before you shared them with us?!”

“Yes, and what if I did?”

“Young woman you are **_bold_** to pull off a stunt like this after your father-“

“-Her father’s mess was cleaned up by the both of us?” The commander’s glare now zeroed in on him. “Admiral Koris, do I need to remind you how you got the thermal-sink technology on your new envoy ship?”

That stung to hear – Koris and his colleagues knew that Tali gave them those schematics from the SR-2, with a Cerberus officer’s direct permission, no less. Xen was simply too stubborn to let it get in the way of her warmongering. “Shepard, we appreciate you and Mr. Taylor’s transparency and cooperation, but these matters are far too sensitive! This material is of utmost confidentiality to the Special Projects Fleet and the Admiralty board, and we cannot afford to let such intelligence fall into the wrong hands!”

“Am _I_ the wrong hands, Admiral?”

Her eyelids had lifted and her pupils were pinheads. Raan knew she had to step in or it would only get worse. “Commander, I apologize for any seeming hypocrisy on our part. You’ve caught us at a very critical junction -“

“You mean your upcoming war with the Geth?”

Gerrel had been able to hold his peace out of respect for Shepard, but putting this war in jeopardy was too much. _“Tali, you told them about this?!”_

“She needed to know. What we have here can change the course of the entire galaxy. We can’t just keep it to ourselves. And besides, you all know what’s coming. If Isaac and Carver can give us a means to avoid the relays, everyone is going to need it!”

“Which is why we can’t have the council interfering!” Gerrel took Koris’ place, hoping to make amends. “Commander, you know the Admiralty Board believes you on the reaper threat. You know the Geth would serve under them again when they return, just like they did with Sovereign! Please, we cannot afford to let the council muddle this up! We need to do this!”

“First off, the Council would only be enforcing policy you willingly breached, second, not all Geth side with the Reapers. Tali, you told them about Legion, didn’t you?”

“I’ve certainly tried. Admiral Koris was the only one to listen.”

For once, Koris felt he had allies. “Yes, thank you Tali. You and me seem to be the only ones ready to vote against this whole ordeal.”

“We can’t discard the chance we have simply because of a few splinter groups, Koris. The Reapers are coming and our window is closing.”

Shepard and Tali were exchanging looks, neither knowing when they would get the chance to speak again.

“Especially when we’ve just developed our new countermeasure! It can shorten this whole venture to a matter of a few months, in case we are need to aid in the event of a Reaper invasion!”

“Xen, don’t be so eager to use your new toy. The Geth can help us! Especially if Legion-“

“Admiral Koris, that platform vanished into the veil as soon as Shepard was grounded. If it and its compatriots really had any interest in helping organics, it would have stayed to initiate cooperation.”

Carver shot glances between the quarrel and his companion. Isaac looked almost as if he weren’t paying attention; his eyes glued to the bulkhead and his frame fidgeting idly, but a closer look found clenched fists, and a closer listen heard gusts out of his nostrils.

“You all know this is suicide. Your people are going to need you. The entire galaxy is going to need you. Throwing yourselves at the Geth isn’t going to help any of that. Raan, you can’t tell me you’re voting in favor of this-“

“I’m sorry commander, but I might have to. It is a hard decision, but we need to move. I did not have the same experiences with the Geth as you.”

“Shepard, it’s not that we don’t trust you. As a matter of fact, if you could drum up some Alliance support-“

“Admiral Gerrel, our hands are full right now-“

“Han'Gerrel, that is madness! It’s bad enough our own civilians are set to pay the price for our recklessness, but now you want the humans to pay for it too?!”

** _“THAT’S ENOUGH!!”_ **

A masked people weren’t so used to anger sounding so lucid and loud and looming. They turned their attention to its source. The whites of Isaac’s eyes almost looked to be glowing in the ambient holographic light as they stared death at the admiralty board. His scowl, the rhythm of his breath, every minute twitch on the muscles of his face, bound their attention and scraped at long-forgotten instincts freezing them in place as if they had been spotted by a predator.

Carver knew otherwise. The Isaac he knew was meek, cordial, and docile. He had only ever seen him explode in anger once, but that one time had also been the last memory of many of Danik’s men. He took him by the shoulder, seeing if he couldn’t help him keep himself under wraps. “Isaac, you okay?”

“I’m fine-“

“Clarke, is there something on your mind?”

“Commander, why did you want me and John here? All I’ve done is stand around and listen to everyone else in this room bitch at each other. I need to know what the hell’s the point of this, or I’m walking.”

It wasn’t every day she saw fire to rival her own. “Tali tipped me off. The ships, the tech, and the fact that you knew it all inside and out could be a lot of use for what’s coming.”

“I assume you’re talking about this ‘reaper’ shit? Interesting that no one’s told me about it yet.”

Her immediacy took him by surprise. “Your wait is over.”

From her omni-tool came a familiar image to most in the room. To them, it was known as Sovereign. “This one attacked the Citadel, the main seat of galactic power, with a supporting force of geth. It was two kilometers in length, destroyed hundreds of Asari, Turian, and Alliance ships, and thousands more lives before We managed to take it out. That was two years ago.”

Tali helped elucidate. “It was preparing to usher in the arrival of the entire reaper fleet. We delayed that arrival first on the Citadel, and most recently at the Alpha relay. Now there’s no telling how soon they get here.”

A deadening silence fell where Shepard’s words should have gone. Something about an estimation from alliance sources, or preparations underway with Anderson and Hackett, but nothing. Everyone in the room, Tali, the Admirals, Isaac and carver, all were expecting Shepard to expound, but they got nothing. A few long, heart-stopping, air-chilling seconds of nothing. It only seemed to grow colder when they all saw the commander and the deadpan look on her face.

“Tali… that’s part of why I’m here. What I was hoping to tell you.” She brought up footage from the Kite’s Nest Relay.

No one was ready for it, no matter how much they expected it. Tali’s memory of Sovereign’s attack and the collector base now felt puny and trivial. Every worry, every apprehension she had about the coming storm since she first got a hold of the evidence of Saren’s treachery now felt realized. It was new to Isaac and carver, but the glimpse of the Batarians’ flight tore at the scars in their minds hopelessly healing over the wounds of the recent past; ageless monstrosities the size of cities descending with hunger upon billions.

“The reapers are here.”

“..Here?! Here where?” Gerrel’s fear of the reapers had laid dormant until now. “Where was that footage from?”

“That was from Kite’s nest. The reapers are slaughtering the Batarians, but they haven’t gone any further than that. They can hit earth and the rest of the galaxy any minute. Hackett already has the alliance mobilizing to guard earth while Anderson drums up support from the council races. He’ll need my help, but I’ve got to put my house in order first. Isaac, you hold the key to helping the galaxy obtain a viable means to maneuver around the reapers. The things you could show us could reduce casualties by the billions. Carver? You’re a spec ops soldier. You’ve fought unconventional wars for years, all the way up until you got ‘here.’ I need people like you on my team. Tali’s given me info on you and Clarke and your last mission together, and I’ll need that kind of grit for my mission.”

Carver remembered that last fight against the marker. It all felt like blind luck that it worked, but this? This was pushing that luck too far. “What ‘mission?!’ What the hell are we supposed to do against those things?”

“Fight back or die.”

It was simple. Too simple, yet impossible to deny. Mouths stayed shut, waiting for a way to rebut, but nothing came.

Admiral Raan finally had something to say. “Shepard, this has us caught us completely unprepared. We don’t know if we have the power to fight the reapers, or if we’ll be able to address the Geth threat in time.”

Xen already had plans of her own. “We’re the closest anyone’s come prepared to fighting the geth. Every ship of ours is either newly armed or in the process of arming. If we act now, we can cut them off before they lend aid to the reapers!”

“Admirals, I can’t hold your hand for everything, but I can tell you this. We have no room for error. Tali is not lying about Legion and neither am I. We can’t risk forcing the geth to join with the reapers because you acted rashly.”

“Finally, someone’s talking sense.” Koris’s jab wasn’t lost on anyone, but he didn’t care. “But, what would you have us do? And what exactly are you doing?”

“Me? I’m an hour away from landing on the Mars archives to find plans for a prothean weapon I am informed may be able to turn the tide of this war before it even starts. I’m gathering my team for when we start to move, when we start mobilizing in an offensive against the reapers. We’re going to be at the spearhead, and I can only afford to have the best and brightest.”

Tat’s when she turned back to the Engineer.

“So, Isaac, if you wanted to know ‘the point of this,’ that’s it.”

“I see.”

“And as for what I’d have the Flotilla do? The geth need addressing yes, but it needs to be done right. Me and Tali have told you about Legion ad nauseam. We need to get you to the Perseus veil and show you ourselves. We can get the Geth on our side”

Koris’ fear for his civilians seized control over him. “And when the geth see all our ships armed to the teeth, what are we supposed to do?”

“That’s a good question, admiral. Isaac, Tali tells me there’s quite a few of those ships from your junkyard in flotilla custody, correct?”

“Yeah, but only one looks like it’ll ever be spaceworthy again. It’s a shuttle, meant for troop transport. It’ll only hold a small shore party of what, five to six people?”

“Sounds exactly like that we’ll need.”

“Commander, I -“ he wanted to scream at her ‘no.’ No more gunfire, no more fighting, just a way to get back to Ellie and a normal life, but something in him strangled his voice to a near whisper instead of a scream. The same thing that bid him to protect Ellie both from Titan Station and from the death of the Brother Moon. Something that told him this was the right thing to do. “I really don’t want to spend any more time fighting.”

‘I never said you had to, Isaac. You alone know how to get that thing spaceworthy again, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ll need a full crew of hands and few months to get the shockdrive in working condition-“

Tali shut his excuse down with all too much enthusiasm. “I have plenty of crewmen at my command waiting to help you get it in working order, Isaac.”

“What if the Geth get hostile? I’ve never fought them or anything like them before!”

“That’s why you got me, man.” Carver had his arm on his shoulder again. “I can help you take on a few robots. Besides, it’s not markers, right? We’ve been through worse.”

“How are we going to fight any substantial force off in a shuttle?”

Raan’s voice carried her soothing missive impeccably. “Whether or not Shepard and Tali’Zorah are right about the geth, your shuttle would be an advantage. It does not need a relay to make jumps across deep space. They will neither see you coming or be able to cut you off if you need to escape.”

Shepard could see it. That tinge of resignation that heralded an acceptance of duty; half-shut, but focused eyes, taut lips, and a slight nod. “Glad to have you aboard, Isaac.”

“Glad to be aboard, I guess.”

Xen’s fingers blazed about her omni-tool, forwarding a missive to her subordinates. “I’ll have special projects monitor his progress and record his instructions. We’ll make sure there’s enough valuable intel on shockpoint drives to pass on to the rest of the galaxy.”

“Sounds good to me. Tali, how much manpower can you lend Isaac?”

“I’m an Admiral now, Shepard. I’ve got everyone on the fleet with working hands and tech experience.”

“Isaac, with enough people, how long would it take you to get that shuttle operational?”

There was some motivation beginning to bubble up. He would be working on something he was familiar with, something electronic and mechanical. That much, he knew he enjoyed. “With the right number of guys, I think I can get it running within the week. Maybe two.”

“Good. Because when I’m back from Mars, I’ll be having two more people ready to board. Admirals, how much longer can you idle around Cyone?”

Gerrel brought reports from his subordinates. “Not much longer. We’ve intercepted traffic from the colonial government to Thessia. They want us out of here ASAP.”

“Then take what salvage you can and steam back for the Terminus. The Alliance has a few outposts there for their outreach program. I can meet you there. And Isaac?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll see you in three days.”


	8. Hangups

The memo had been sent, read, and tossed to the back of Isaac’s mind in the same time it took for him to get back to the Admirals’ deck. The latter half of the deposition was to be cancelled and any of Isaac’s technological knowledge was to be found out as he began work on the shuttle. He had mixed thoughts, mostly concerning how constant questioning would bog down the process, but all of it took a backseat to the elephant that Shepard had tossed into the room, which was now following him and breathing incessantly down his neck.

The reapers are here.

He didn’t even know what a Reaper was just an hour before and now it was all he could think about. He had faith in Tali’s word that the Geth weren’t hostile by default. He wasn’t worried about them. The upcoming shuttle refurbishment was like any other job at the CEC, only now with a couple dozen apprentices, all prodigies by human standards, there to lend a hand. Nothing out of the ordinary.

These things though, these massive murderous, unknowable things, these machines driven to burn and break and exterminate, clawed at the back of his mind like the marker itself. Just that fact that he wasn’t _done_, that he wasn’t _free_, that there was still something out there, waiting to kill him and billions of others, drove him to the verge of conniptions. At least if it was markers and necromorphs, he’d have a vague idea of what to do. He had no idea what to do with these things, these _Reapers_. This endless armada only one relay jump away. An entire race was being wiped out as they spoke, and it could come to humanity and the rest of the galaxy in a matter of minutes.

And _he_ had less than a week to give them all the technology to escape. Him _alone_.

Once again, billions of lives were counting on them, only now, there were going to know it. So many people counting on him again, but this time, he could feel their pleading, fearful eyes on him. It made him want to shrivel up and die.

“You okay, man?”

Carver’s voice was just barely enough to bring him out of it. Only now did he noticed how curled up he was and how close to his knees his face had sunken. His lungs finally had room to breathe and it almost sounded like he had been suffocated as he straightened himself up.

“… hey John.”

“What’s up? I saw you rocking back and forth for a minute. You gonna be alright?”

“I don’t know.”

Carver took a seat beside him. “Is it the same thing that made you go off on Shepard back there?”

“That’s part of it, yeah.”

“Talk to me, man. What’s going on? I think I’ve only seen you freak out like that once and you were shooting at people.”

“And I thought Ellie was dead.” Isaac’s sudden snap to eye contact froze Carver in place. “I thought my last chance for a life of my own was gone, so I went fucking nuts.”

“Is that what’s happening right now?”

“What do you think, John? You saw what Shepard just showed us. They said just one of them took out half a fleet by itself before they took it down. There must have been what, a couple hundred of those fucking things in that video?!”

“Isaac-“

“Me and you, we took out a moon and all the markers with it, and that should’ve cost us our lives. The fact that there was even a way to kill it was a miracle and it was made by a bunch of people who had been dead for millennia. Without them, we’d have no way to fight back. I mean, did we ever figure out how they built that machine? Or what the hell it even does?”

His voice was raising and his breathing with it. Carver pried for an opening, anything to help him calm down. “Isaac, you’ve got to-“

“We shouldn’t have won that fight, John, but we did by some dumb fucking luck. Now we’re facing something bigger. We’re talking hundreds, if not thousands at a time. Where’s our machine?! Where’s that magical fucking McGuffin that’s gonna get us out of this one?!”

“You heard Shepard say-“

“I heard her say they’re already here. I heard Gerrel say the ‘council’ didn’t listen to her until now, so you know everyone’s been sitting on their asses and no one’s ready. You and me just got here. How the hell can **_we_** be ready?!”

**“Isaac!”**

Carver’s hand was like a vice on Isaac’s shoulder and it was fast and hard enough to shock Isaac out of his hysterics. “Isaac, listen to me, man. You’re not helping yourself here.”

“John, I can’t-“

“No, no, no. I’ll tell you what you ‘can’t’ do right now. You can’t freak out like this. You can’t let it break you.”

“John, you know that’s easier said than done-“

“Oh, I do know.” Now his voice was lower. Somber. “How do you think I felt when Damara died, huh?”

“…”

“You think I just waltzed through that? You think the Marker chose to impersonate her and Dylan just for shits and giggles?” He put two fingers to his head, pointing them like a handgun. “You know that losing them wasn’t the first time I thought about this? That I thought I was a shit dad that was treating my boy wrong and that I didn’t deserve him? The marker caught me at the perfect time. I was weak. I was close to caving in, but I didn’t. You know how we got a fix on Tau Volantis, Isaac?”

“How?”

“Damara. She found the SC data and that’s why the Unitologists were after us. That’s when Ellie found me and we shocked out to find you. I was gonna finish Damara’s mission no matter what. I was driven. I was gonna make it up to her no matter what. You think Ellie is here, Isaac?”

He stared out into space almost long enough that Carver was about to call his name again. “… She has to be.”

“Then you do this for her, okay?”

“John-“

“Those Reapers are out there. They’re gonna tear everything down, but not if you help find a way to stop them, and you’re not alone. Shepard’s got pull, and she’s doing what she can to rally people. You’ve already got the know-how to save lives and keep them from killing people. Those reapers? They’ve got to use the relays, but with your help, they can’t get to anyone. You’ve already got half the puzzle, man.”

“I-I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Yeah you do, man.” Carver dealt him a few more hearty slaps on the shoulder. “You’re not alone. I’ve got your back. Tali’s got your back. This whole fleet, which I’m told is the biggest in the galaxy, has your back, and soon enough, when word gets out, the whole galaxy will too.”

“More like they’ll be _on_ my back. John, there’s going to be billions of people counting on me…”

“They already are counting on you. Matter of fact, they already have in the past, and you managed to pull through for them… “ He saw Isaac reach for a breast pocket before coming up empty handed with a blank stare. “… you probably weren’t thinking of that though, were you?”

“No… I was thinking of-“ Isaac cut himself short. He knew what drove him, and just like that he knew what he needed to drive him through this.

“Like I said, you can do this.”

“Okay… okay.”

Carver let him be and just leaned back into the seat, giving him some time to mull it over and get his bearings.

“So… Shepard’s going to be here in three days. When do you want to start?

“Well, the quarians are going to need a sitrep if they’re going to have any idea on how to help me fix it. A lot of the problems lie in the chassis itself; it took a beating on the way down. Frame isn’t compromised, but it’s beaten enough that a lot if it will need touching up. Shockdrive is mostly intact, it just needs a new diode on the exotic matter generation module, though that might be one of the trickiest parts. I don’t think anyone here has ever fabricated their own exotic matter on account of this ‘eezo’ stuff, so it might take a while just for them to get a hold of the basic math. Blueshift radiation dampeners are in bad shape. May have to fabricate new ones, and that will take a lot of manpower to get it done in one sitting. Shockspace comms are in a similar boat; the superluminal signal arrays themselves are intact but the tachyonic-“

“Isaac, I’ve got to tell you right now, I barely understand what you’re saying.”

“-Oh.”

“But that’s a good sign! You’re back on track, right?”

It was what he knew. It was his passion of over twenty years. “Yeah… ready to get back in the saddle.”

Carver nodded and finally let himself smile. “Think you’re gonna do more greasemonkey-ing when this is over?”

Isaac took a deep breath, getting past the enormity of it all to look at the future. “Shit, if I’m not bone tired by then, I might. Ellie’s a heavy equipment pilot, she’s got a good bearing on engineering even if it’s not her job, who knows? Maybe we can get a little something going. Small business on Earth, or hell, maybe the Quarians could use a hand here, even if space is limited. What about you?”

Isaac noticed he may have asked the wrong question when he saw Carver’s smile fading. “I… don’t know right now. I mean, it’s been a few months since Damara.”

“Oh… still a little raw, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, I’m sorry man.”

“Don’t be.” It was a mirror of their first conversation, but different. Warmer. “We got it done. I made it up to her.”

“She and Dylan would be proud.”

“Hell yeah, man.” He didn’t sniff or wince or give off any sign that he was holding back misty eyes. “I’m sure they are.”

Another pause, and another few moments of nothing but the sound of the air scrubbers to accompany them.

“Notice you’ve been calling me ‘John,’ by the way.”

Isaac’s eyes perked up. “Yeah, is that okay?”

“Sure. Guess I’m more used to just ‘Carver’ though. Spend a couple years in uniform and first-name basis feels weird. You’re fine though, you can use either.”

“You got it, John.”

“Heheh…”

“You know, I’ve been talking a lot about Ellie, but what about you? I mean, I don’t want to sound like I’m picking at a scab, but I don’t think Damara would want you to be alone.”

It took a second for him to really digest that. He hadn’t even been thinking about it – a future with someone else. “No… no she wouldn’t.” He was making that slight, continuous nod that he had been doing. “I mean, let’s be real. That’s a bit farther down the pipeline with all the shit we’ve got going on right now.”

“Sure, I get that.”

“Might take me a few moons to really get back up on my feet after that, but who knows? Anything can happen.”

“Yeah, man.”

“And hey…” He seemed levitous, though a little hesitant to say what he had in mind. “I mean… Tali’s pretty cute-“

It sounded like Isaac had sneezed his brains out, loud enough to make Carver flinch. It took a second for Carver to realize he was laughing hysterically.

“**_Pfft!_** Carver you- you fuckin’-!”

“What?! Come on, you’re not going to give me shit because she’s an alien, are you?”

_“- You cradle robber, she’s 22!”_

“... Shut up.”

“Ahahahaha!”

Carver felt like putting on his mask just to hide. “Man, shut the fuck up, you’re lying!”

“No!” Isaac brought up his omni-tool “Nezala sent me their dossiers. She’s 22, man!”

He took one look at the summary next to Tali’s picture and immediately wanted to die. Now he was laughing too. “Oh, fuck off…”

“Ahahaha!!”

His mask assembled, but it did little to drown out Isaac’s laughing. “_God_, shut up…”

Isaac almost paused. He realized he hadn’t laughed like this in years. Not even since he and Ellie were together. It wasn’t even until he dug all the way back before Nicole, when he was still working on ship systems with his peers. It had been so long. So long before this whole mess. It only made him relish it even more.

“M-My name’s John Carver and I like-“

“I _swear_, Isaac-“

“- I like my women like I like my beer!”

_“Fucking don’t-“_

_“-18 years old and full of coke!”_

Carver punched him and it wasn’t exactly a love tap. He stood up, shaking his head as Isaac laughed the pain off.

_“Oof!”_

“You deserve that.” He let down his helmet. Hiding was useless at this point.

“Well hey, he wasn’t lying.”

Nezala’s voice made Carver flinch so hard he looked like he was convulsing. “SSHHHIT!! Christ, how long have you been there?!”

“Long enough to hear you embarrass yourself, Carver.” He couldn’t see past the visor, but he could see her slanting eyes and knew she was smirking at him. “Although, Isaac, you may be wrong. Maybe he just wants a sugar momma. She’s an admiral after all.”

Isaac stood up, but only barely, as he was still hunched over, catching his breath. Carver however, slumped back into the seat, defeated. “I give up, man.”

“Hey, if she’s right, Raan’s 60 and single-“

Try as he might, he couldn’t keep his own smile down. It would take a good minute to get this out of their system. “Fuck **_off_**, man. Jesus…”

“it’s because she was leaning up against you, huh?”

“She was what now?” Nezala had come close and was now leaning over the couch between the two.

“We were fixing his RIG and she had him wrapped in legs.”

“Guys, come on, knock it off…”

“Personal space is a little less in vogue here than it is with humans, but yeah, Tali gets a little distracted sometimes when she’s wrapped up in something.”

“Yeah, Carver sure was wrapped up in something, wasn’t he?”

“I swear to God, man...”

“Oh, you’re throwing stones in a glass ship, Isaac.”

He heard Nezala’s tone, saw her sway a bit and felt his blood run cold. Denial was his first weapon of resort. “W-what are you talking about?”

Her sway only got more obvious. “You know exactly what it is.”

He looked down and saw Carver sneering at him like a devil. _“What’s she talking about, Isaac?”_

She saw Isaac’s mortified face and was satisfied. “Later, Carver. Tali just wants to establish a proper timeframe. Says she needs you to give her some basic ideas so she knows who to delegate to what.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as you can. Tali needs this before it’s time to hit the berth. She’s gathering her engineering team. They’ll be starting work in earnest tomorrow.”

“How many hands?”

“You’re looking at anywhere from seventy to a hundred and forty. She guessed you’d need separate teams for fixing the ship proper, one for parts fabrication, etc.

“Holy shit, she wasn’t kidding…” Isaac paced idly, his mind scrounging up the details from his last repair efforts. It was already 2300 hours. He’d have two hours at most to give seventy people who had never had any real experience with his technology a tutorial on how to fix it, fabricate it, and restore it to working order.

No pressure.

“No use standing here, I guess. Is it gonna be here?”

“Nope. On the Rayya. You’ll have to mask up.”

He exchanged looks with Carver. No turning back now. No more hiding. Everything they had talked about, all their worries, frustrations, and hopes hinged on this. Time to take the plunge.

“Ready when you are, Nezala.”

“You got it. Mask up and follow me.”

Silently they followed, and the hatch shut behind them.

_ Month 2, day 2-3. _

_>It’s hard to really process all of this. 24 hours ago, I was lost. Confused. Looking for answers in a world I didn’t know, from people who had just found me. In that time, all the tables have been turned. Now they want answers from me. Now they’re confused. Scared. I don’t know how much I can give them. I don’t know if I have any answers for what’s coming, for these ‘Reapers.’ All I have is the shockdrive and who knows how that will go down? Who knows how long it’s going to take before we get the galaxy retrofitted with these? How long could be outrun the reapers anyway? _

_>I don’t know. I can’t let it get to me. Tali’s counting on me. The Quarians are counting on me. Ellie’s counting on me, wherever she is. Part of me almost hopes she’s back home, living peacefully, thinking I’m dead. At least we got to say our goodbyes and air everything out before the end. I wish I could have at least seen her shock out so I’d have a concrete answer Here? I have no concrete answer and I can’t express how badly I need to find her. I don’t want her in danger. I don’t want her involved in this whole reaper mess. I don’t even know how I’m going to start searching if she’s here. How do I register her RIG signal? It took the colonists on Cyone a good month to figure out what I was sending and identify my signal. _

_>Right now, I’ve just got to bury it. Try as hard as I can to power on through without all the answers. Tali needs answers from me, so I’ll give them to her any way I can. I had to lay things out in only two hours. We wake up in five. Not enough time to explain the physics and math, but enough to lay out our schedule: days 1 through 3 will be spent on the chassis, finding any spots with poor integrity and other things that may need replacing and repair. If it’s bad enough, we’ll be looking at a worst case scenario: complete rebuild. Take inventory of re-entry plating, check frame for any compromised spots, take care of basic cockpit systems. While Tali and Shift 1 handle that, I will be taking Shift 2 aside and giving them lectures on the physics of the shockpoint drive and all its accessories, giving fabrication procedures and general specs. They’ll be working on a mockup with my help to wrap their shift up. Days 4 through 7 will see Shift 1 working on ship systems, including flight control, navigation, shockpoint computer, etc. Shift 2 will take care of fabrication, taking stock of BCR dampeners, hypersurface modules, and other parts of the ship complicit in shockspace travel. Day 7 onward will basically be wrap-up – putting the last pieces together, initiating factory reset, checking power, testing ship engines, ailerons and flaperons, all that.  _

_>Shepard will have been here for a few days and she’ll be watching the last parts of the process unfold. That woman’s got some fucking nerve. I get that she’s got a lot on her plate but that doesn’t mean she’s suddenly my boss. I have no boss. Not right now, at least. I get that may have to change when the reapers arrive in force, but she doesn’t need to go flexing on me just because she likes some shiny new toys she can use. What makes her the Authority on that? Why shouldn’t I just report to that “council” I’ve been told about? They can get the most done with what I have to offer. Not her. _

_>It’s not all bad. I’ve hit it off with Nezala pretty nicely, even if she likes to milk our first encounter for every last drop. It’s good to have John by my side too. Feels like a miracle we both survived. He’s softened up a lot too. Guy was the biggest hardass I’d ever met. Now I feel like I can get a drink with him. Maybe I will. Tali tells me that Quarians can only drink stuff made by Turians (still need to meet one of them) since their amino acid chirality is different form us, though it should be safe for me and Carver since ethanol has no chirality. Warns it might taste like shit though. Don’t think I’d much care. Regardless, John’s in this same shitty boat with me, and other than Ellie, I can scarcely count anyone who I’d have with me. I just wish there was something real I could do for the guy. _

_>I can only bitch so much. It’s getting late and I have to get what four hours of sleep I can pillage before we start tomorrow. _

_ _

_ Month 2, day 6. _

_>These people work fucking fast. If I had known Quarians had this kind of work ethic I would have reduced my estimate. Guess it’s somewhat of a given. You live on a ship your whole life, and you’re not going to have much room to laze around. We’ve gotten the first two days’ objectives down in almost a single shift. Shift 1’s already done with plating and they’ve found no real compromises in the hull that would warrant a rebuild, thank God. Shift 2 had tons of questions about the workings of the shockdrive, Xen especially. Amazing how fast they were able to grasp the math. Some even proposed ways to make the system more efficient. Too bad most of them had already been tried by Hideki Ishimura himself -and failed. Pretty damned impressed though. We already have working diodes for the exotic matter generator. Parts of the H-Boson manipulation pathway are already up. _

_>Got some news from Shepard the other day. Apparently, there’s been some sort of delay on Mars. Some splinter group was trying to steal their intel, but her and her squad took care of the situation before it got too far out of control. Something about a gynoid sneaking into the system disguised as a faculty member. I’ll see what all the hubbub is about when she gets here. _

_ _

_ Month 2, day 7 _

_>Things are going as smoothly, and as quickly as I’ve expected them to go since first seeing how fast these guys can get things done. It’s tiring as hell. Me and Tali are working on four hours of sleep max between our shifts. How the fuck these people do it wearing a suit 24/7 is beyond me. The envoy ship spoiled me. I’ve been itching to take off my helmet while working, but I can’t unless I want to get everyone sick, meaning I have to take the heat of welding without being able to take my suit off afterwards and cool down. I’ve requested a trip to the envoy ship to at least clean myself up, but the admirals say it’s a no-go. Tali gave me the news and gave her condolences when I realized I’d be smelling and feeling like shit for the next few days. _

_>We’re actually pretty close to the closing stages. Shockdrive is installed, flight control systems and shockpoint computers are up and running (got scared shitless when it looked like we’d have to re-install the software. Luckily, it was just running a little slow, but otherwise functional. We copied the source code just to be safe). We might have this done in all of two days. _

_>Now to clench up and get ready for our rendezvous with the geth tomorrow. We'll be doing a flight test excursion around the fleet, then back into the berth for any necessary calibrations before we cast off for real. I still don’t know how ready I am, but Tali’s run this gauntlet many times, and apparently Shepard has too. John's coming with. Raan says she has our weapons. We’ll have them back as soon as the shuttle is finished with its test run; a little excursion around the fleet. That’s scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I can’t believe we’re almost done. _

_>Let’s just hope it amounts to something _

_ _

END_LOG


	9. Debarkation

** Commander’s log. Star date: August 13, 2186 **

** Got a lot off my checklist today. Normandy is underway to Mars and Garrus will be there to boot. Liara hasn’t been able to tell me much – she feels suspicious about some personnel on the base and wants to keep even encrypted channels safe from overly sensitive information. Won’t fault her. Illusive man hasn’t made contact since desertion. Will pack heat just in case. Going to tell Hackett to beef up security and background/biological tracing. Whatever this is, Liara says its big enough to turn the tide against the reapers. She can take all the caution she needs. It took her months to develop the decryption algorithm. Most prothean hardware is hardly forthcoming, at best. I just hope this gives us more options than just running and fighting. God, all the firepower and lives we needed to take down Sovereign and it cost us in the thousands. I can’t stop thinking about it – thousands of the Reapers are tearing Kar’shaan apart. None of the scouting sorties Hackett has sent out there have come back. Only one was able to transmit footage from comm buoys they brought themselves and it lasted for all of fifteen seconds before they were shot down. Everyone is on edge. Why are they focusing so hard on the batarians? Some terminus colonies have reported reaper sightings, but from the rim of each system. Palaven had a moment of panic when they saw a patrol of three skirting their extrasolar rim before beating feet without a trace. They’re scoping us out. Garrus let me know that the Hierarchy has their hands full trying to stop full-on pandemonium from ensuing. The Batarian refugee tapes have gone viral at this point. The whole galaxy knows, and the whole galaxy is afraid. **

** Thank God for Garrus. I was afraid with all the shit going on that he wouldn’t be able to leave Palaven. I guess for once he can thank his father, even if only for having good connections. I don’t know this General Victus, but I trust Garrus’ judgement, and I know it owes to more than just me wanting him here. **

** But God, do I want him here. **

** Six months and he still feels as serious about this as I do. Six months and he spent it all trying to get in contact while keeping the hierarchy satisfied. I was worried he’d be willing to sacrifice his duties to be here, but I’ve looked it over and it seems that everything he could do has been done. All the advice that only he could give has been given. Their weapons manufacturers are pumping out more thanix weaponry than ever before, and much of it is for export. Everyone is going to need those guns. Turian fleet mobilizations have already begun. Garrus has given what he can to them. Now we can get the rest of this done together. **

**Starting with Clarke. Met with him today over holopad. Hard to read him. It felt like he shut himself off as soon as I started speaking. I can tell he’s had enough of the Admirals jumping on him. He lashed out when they threw a fit about their little war and nearly made them all shit their pants. He had been so docile until then. His companion had to keep him under wraps. I was honestly expecting that one to be the hothead, not the tech geek. I’ll see what use I have for them once the shuttle is done. If Carver is who he says he is, he’ll be an excellent member of our fireteam. Isaac maybe less so, but he’d be invaluable in helping to get the Normandy retrofitted. Tali seems to like him, at least.**

** **

** August 14, 2186 **

** Clarke should be making good headway on his shuttle by the time I get there. The admirals have already promised to send me their data. Can’t let it go public just yet though. Only secure council/Alliance channels and agencies for now. If the wrong people get a hold of this, it could ruin us. I don’t even want to think about what some indoctrinated crazies would do if they spilled this Shockdrive technology to the Reapers. I don’t know what Cerberus has been up to since I left, but the way the Illusive man wanted to keep the remains of the Human reaper intact were a huge red flag. I’m not saying they’re indoctrinated, but the more I think about it and the more I muse about who Liara may be suspicious of, the more I worry.  **

** We met with key Alliance staff today. Hackett couldn’t make it, but several of his top brass will be in attendance when we discuss the Prothean find. It was so good to see Liara and Garrus in person again after so long. Held a conference at 1100 hours. Surprised at how well Liara held her cool presenting the information, even though is wasn’t complete and Brass tried giving her a hard time for it. It was quick, but we covered all the bases we needed to. This is top priority now, not only for the alliance, but for Palaven, whom Garrus was able to speak for. Liara has bene working on getting governments from Thessia involved, but to little avail. It’s so aggravating. So much economic power that could expedite the process and they’re lending none of it. Messaged the Asari Councilor about it and she said she would try to get gears turning, but that’s a dubious promise at best. **

** The Crucible Project has officially begun. Now to wait for the Shockdrive Project to wrap up **

** **

** August 15, 2186 **

** Now I know what Cerberus has been up to. We’re still cleaning up the bodies. Kaiden is in critical condition after a Cerberus gynoid bashed his skull into a burning bulkhead. Thing’s still sitting in EDI’s compartment where we’re wondering what to do with it. Extraction of intel proved useless. The memory core was shot to hell. Had to take Kaiden back to earth for treatment, so there goes our timetable. Had to send Tali a missive about the situation. She has confidence in me. Maybe too much. I’m not invincible. Kaiden certainly isn’t invincible. This whole mess has me frazzled. I forgot to tell her we would be running late, so I had to send a second missive that I have to hope she gets to Isaac because I never put in his contact information. Too distracted by what happened today. Tali can sort it out. **

** Illusive man finally decided to break radio silence. Gynoid snuck into the systems and tried scurrying before Kaiden and Garrus gave chase. All the while, The Illusive Man decided to have a little chat with me. No one was able to decrypt the channel before he left. He kept it brief. Says he has big plans and that I’m no longer needed. Something about cementing humanity’s place in the galaxy. Something about some new source of power. Warned me to either join back or I would be on the losing side. Cut comms before I could get a word in edgewise. Fuck him. **

** Just hope Clarke got my message. We need the intel from the tests and we need to limit the amount of traffic it goes through to keep security strong. Nothing wrong with the Flotilla passing along the intel in any other circumstance, but today has me paranoid. Today has been long enough. **

** I just pray to God we can get things running before the Reapers knock on our door. **

** **

** END LOG **

** _________________ **

There was nothing to say.

Walking down the passageways, following the shuttle through a crane-assisted taxi, minutes away from making history in a new world, all accompanied by anticipatory silence. Isaac had his eyes on the fuselage where the Marker insignia once was. It had been blasted off at his request, leaving behind an empty space surrounded by scratched red paint. Faint traces of the white marker remained in the bulkhead plating. It felt symbolic, this ship thought to be dead, brought back for some purpose it was never intended for, bearing the faint mark of a horrible past…

His eyes were too preoccupied to warn his feet of an incoming step. _“Whoa!”_

Carver caught him before his face paid the price. “You okay?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, you’ve been pretty quiet.”

“So have you, though.”

“I’ll give you that, but I haven’t been staring at the ship the whole time.”

“…You caught that huh?”

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

Radio chatter came over Nezala’s comms interrupted them. ‘Captain Verei, Commander Shepard has docked at cradle 14. ETA to launch bay, five minutes.”

Isaac let a nervous laugh hiss past his teeth. “That answer your question?”

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “… Nothing we haven’t already talked about, I guess.”

“Anything you two forgot to air out?” Nezala had caught up with them.

“No just… just trying and failing to come to grips with it. I mean just look at that.” He pointed to the shuttle as it entered the berth through a set of heavy, antiquated bulkhead doors. “This is it. We’re going to be interfacing with the geth, and it’s not like most people here have enough experience to walk me through it. We’re flying in blind.”

“Then we’ll be flying in blind together.”

Tali stood at the hatch leading to the berth, arms akimbo, silver eyes glistening with resolve.

“Tali…” The engineer’s eyes flipped from her to the shuttle, which was now lowering into launch position, workers already towing materiel for the journey. “You haven’t told me much about this ‘Legion’ thing yet.”

“It’s a geth, or well, a collection of geth. Each platform houses multiple geth programs. Legion holds many times the normal amount; over eleven-hundred in its case. It was able to speak with me and Shepard. No telling if we’ll encounter it in the Veil, though.”

Carver checked the receiver of his pulse rifle, opening its hinge action and fiddling with the magazine. Two guards to his left eyed him before the hatch behind them lit up. “What did it want?”

“It wants a future if its own. Apparently, that’s what all geth want, save for a few heretics who wanted to rely on the reapers.”

“Let’s hope that rewrite worked then.”

Tali knew that voice and turned to hear it. It felt so good to hear it again in person. “Shepard!”

The Commander passed the guards, putting some spry in her step to meet her, embracing the young admiral like a little sister. “How are you, kid?”

She had been so glad to see her, even if it was only her eyes through her N7 visor. “Well, suit readings say my heart rate is 20% faster than normal, so I’d say I’m a little excited.”

“Now this is getting me nostalgic. What about you, Liara?”

“I can already picture us all on those elevators on the Citadel, Garrus.”

Two other figures behind Shepard had caught up from the hatch. Tali was glowing. “It’s good to have you all back.”

Carver took one look at Liara and didn’t know whether to shoulder his rifle or radio Kal for help. “Have I seen you before?”

“No, but I’ve seen the reports on Thessia with the affiliated government. I’m sorry they treated you so brusquely.”

‘Wait, so you’re an agent of theirs?”

“I’m not, but my contacts have good ties with them, and I have multiple agents planted in their constituency.”

That sentence and her cordial, friendly smile didn’t seem to mix as well as she thought. He retreated a little from her. “Interesting…”

“… Sorry. That sounded a lot more congenial in my head.”

Garrus’ eyes landed on the bay workers preparing the moors. “So, when do we start our little tea time with the geth? I’d like to see this ‘Shockdrive’ thing in action.”

“Very soon, as a matter of fact.” As Tali turned to Isaac and brought the gaze of all three of her companions with her, he felt the weight of their demand. “Isaac can give you the details.”

“Wait, Tali, you didn’t brief them?”

Garrus’ voice ran smooth with facetiousness as ever. “This _is_ the briefing.”

“Oh, well, right**.**” He cleared his throat. “We’ve already conducted a test excursion this morning. Got cosmic radiation signatures, correlated entrance and exit vector data, all that jazz. Soon as we cast off, it’s straight to the Perseus veil from there. Didn’t want to keep you guys waiting.”

Shepard’s brow raised. “Wait, you already carried out flight tests?”

“Yeah. Flights like this are a dime a dozen for me anyway. Everything’s in working order. I’d know otherwise. Special Projects fleet has got it all in the books by now. Why?”

Shepard held back obscenities. Apparently, there had been a lapse in communication. “Did you not get my missive? An alliance liaison came with the Normandy. We also have elements from Palaven and Thessia coming later today to record data from the test run.”

Tali suddenly looked a little panicked. “Wait, Shepard-“

“Isaac, you can’t tell me you just helped me waste my peoples’ time. You realize they’re going to have to wait for us to return from Rannoch before we can collect any data of our own?”

The helmet obscured her weariness and worry. All he could read from the Commander’s voice was petulant impatience and it got on his last nerve. “Alright look. Shepard, I get it, you’ve got a lot to handle. The Reapers, whatever shit happened on Mars, I get it.“

That fire was there again, quicker than last time. “Isaac, it’s okay. I wasn’t-“

“But look. I have spent the last fucking week on an average of 4 hours of sleep a night, working on that goddamn shuttle, getting it from a useless hunk of shit to a flightworthy vessel and the first instance of self-sufficient trans-galactic travel this galaxy has ever seen.”

“Isaac- “ Shepard knew she had miscalculated. She looked back to see Garrus with a hand on his holster.

“I get all this shit done under your insistence and here you are bitching that I didn’t do it right and wait for you. Where the fuck have you been while we were working on this, huh?! Why the fuck is it so important that your people get in first, that you can’t wait for us to send the reports?”

She noticed Tali had tried to get her attention. If nothing else, maybe she could get her to mediate. “It’s alright, Tali probably just-“

Now he was close and his finger was in her face. “You are going to knock this high-and-mighty bullshit off _ASAP_, you got it?!”

“Hey!” Carver had him by the shoulder with Tali gripping his other hand, both pulling him back. Whispering was moot while in a RIG, but the gesture had to make up for something. “_The fuck, man? Calm down!”_

“John-“

“**_Not_** a good first impression.” Garrus still had a hand gripping his pistol, of which the guards all around them were taking notice.

Tali stepped in to mediate. “_Isaac, just calm down_… Shepard, I’m sorry. I must have forgot to pass on the missive. I thought you sent it to him yourself when you forwarded your message about what happened on Mars.”

Now it was Shepard’s turn to try and de-escalate. She put a hand to Garrus’ chest. “Stand down, Garrus.”

“Shepard-”

“That’s an order, soldier.”

It was subtle, but he loved how she mixed that affection for him in with the authority in her command just enough so that only he recognized it. “Understood.” With that, he let out a breath and stepped back.

“Tali, it’s okay. It’s not the end of the world. I was just a little paranoid after the archives. I made the mistake of not re-sending the message anyway. You can pass the test data on to me and I can forward it to the rest of the liaison. They’ll be here when we get back anyway and they can collect data of their own when we come back. Isaac?”

“What?”

“I understand you’re under a lot of duress. All of us are. You mentioned what I told you about Mars?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Liara, show him the blueprint.”

From the Asari’s Omni-tool sprang some flickering display of some old and unknown machination; a spherical head followed by a series of tendrils or buttresses or some other architecture made near indecipherable by time. Liara gazed on it with pride. “These are plans for a weapon I found while working under Admiral Hackett of the Alliance. New decryption algorithms allowed us to find it, along with a new trove of information from the Prothean Mars Archives. We know very little about it, but the one thing we do know is that the Protheans were building it as a weapon to stop the Reapers.”

“And who the hell are the Protheans?”

Shepard interjected, making an earnest effort to try and conceal her frayed nerves. “A race the reapers wiped out thousands of years ago. This weapon was going to be their last hope. They were killed before they completed it, and a day ago, we almost lost all this information to Cerberus.”

“Who?”

“An enemy to every man, woman, and child on this fleet, that’s who.” The disgust in Nezala’s voice took Isaac by surprise. “Only good Cerberus Operative I’ve known about was Shepard, and well, she’s not Cerberus anymore, is she?”

“No, she Isn’t” There was as much relief in that sentence as there was exhaustion. “Their leader didn’t take kind to that and tried to steal my intel and have me killed the other day, so Isaac?”

He was starting to get the hint. “Yeah?”

“Just know we’re all a little worn out. I’m sorry if I came across as demanding. I appreciate what you’ve done here. I really do. I just need you to know that you’re not the only one working on something important. Okay?”

He couldn’t make out any hint of a glare, and she sounded sincere enough. “Fine…” He brought up his new omni-tool, “Admiral Xen?”

“Yes, Mr. Clarke?”

“How’s our cargo looking? Spare parts? O2 supplies? Comm buoys?”

“Nearly finished. We’re almost done uploading Tikkun coordinates for possible exit vectors.”

“Alright then. We’ll start boarding. Sound it and we can get underway.” He closed his comms and set off for the shuttle. “Let’s make ‘em holler everyone.”

Shepard was about to follow, when she caught a quick glance and an oblique nod from Garrus. “Isaac?”

“What?”

“Me and Garrus will be with you in a moment. Liara, you go ahead and board.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Isaac, you go ahead and start up. We’ll be with you in a moment.”

He didn’t even look back. _“Aye-aye captain...”_

The intercom blazed with debarkation notices and calls for hands to man debarkation stations, all enough to drown out any intimate details. Perfect timing. “Garrus?”

“He sure is good at making friends…”

“Hey, none of that. He’s just as stressed as us.”

“Doesn’t mean I can let him get all uppity with you like that.”

Shepard rolled her eyes. “Garrus, I appreciate the gesture, but you don’t need to come running to my rescue all the time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Especially if it means nearly getting people to shoulder weapons. “

He averted his eyes. He knew he had gotten a little carried away, but he didn’t want to admit it.

“Garrus I know you mean well. You don’t have to prove that, especially to me of all people. I made a mistake and I made it twice. Let me own up to that.”

“What mistake?”

“Taking the guy who can help bring us a way to feasibly evacuate from the reapers and taking out all my blood and thunder out on him in place of the defense committee. It was a bad move, especially with what Tali told me about his past, or what little we know of it.”

“How do you know he’s not fibbing?”

“Does this look like he’s making shit up?” Her arm motioning towards the shuttle quickly silenced him. “Garrus, what’s egging you so bad about him?”

“I just don’t like how he’s snapped at you twice.”

“I shared his psyche profile with you. The one Tali and Admiral Raan put together. You saw the footage Tali sent of him joking around with all the other engineers while explaining the calculus. I think it’s safe to say he’s not always a jerk.”

“Well, I don’t know him myself and what I’ve seen so far hasn’t been all too impressive.”

“_Garrus…_”

** _*ALL HANDS, PREPARE FOR VACUUM. ALL PERSONNEL WITHOUT VACUUM-SAFE EQUIPMENT, VACATE THE SHUTTLE BAY IMMEDIATELY. *_ **

“Just give him a chance, okay? He’s giving us one.”

“… Okay.”

Her comms opened. “Shepard! Isaac’s at the helm. He’s waiting for you to board.”

“Be right there, Liara. You all set, Garrus?”

“Shaking in my boots.”

She took in the sight, the bay sirens going off on full blast, the warning lights strobing the room in orange and red, and the shuttle whose engines were beginning to glow in pre-takeoff.

“Let’s not keep them waiting.”

_______________

Isaac was in the helmsman’s seat, Carver by his side. “Took you two long enough. You ready?”

Shepard took the snark without comment, though noticed his tone was softer. “All set. Need us anywhere in particular?”

“No, you’re fine. Just get ready to strap in. Closing the hatch.”

As it shut behind them, Shepard noticed a familiar face standing by the bulkhead seating. “Sergeant Reegar!”

“Pleasure to see you again, ma’am.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ll be occupying the gunner’s seat. Just in case things go sideways and we need to make some noise.”

“Speaking of noise…” Isaac eyed his omni-tool. “Admirals just gave us the greenlight. All adjacent vessels are at safe operating distance, Special Projects fleet is in position to record, liaisons are lagging behind, but they’re getting set up. John, run them through the castoff procedure.”

Carver donned his helmet, making tugging motions on various parts of his RIG. “Don and check EVA equipment!”

Every occupant stood in one of two lines along the bulkhead, one behind the other to inspect equipment. Shepard Calibrated her oxygen supplies, eyeing them over in the N7 helmet’s HUD. Tali, Nezala and Kal pressurized their biosuits, sounding off in a hiss within the compartment as they tugged at antibiotic supply tubing and checked helmet pressure. Garrus tapped all along Shepard’s armor, inspecting for breaches or any possible compromise in the mesh. There were obvious other things he had in mind and his hands made no secret of it, but he was subtle enough that all he got was a cheeky leer from his commander.

Carver made a downward motion from over his shoulders to his hips. “Strap in!”

While everyone got to their seats and lowered their harnesses, he issued another command. “Gunner, to quarters!”

“Gunner to quarters, aye sir!” A flip of one of Isaac’s controls, and a ladder opened from topside, leading Kal into the gunner’s seat through a companionway.

Carver took his seat before issuing one last dispatch. “All hands accounted for. RIG synced with the ship. Awaiting departure.”

“Roger that.” Isaac tapped into comms. “Rayya command, this is Shuttle-075-3, all hands accounted for, all cargo accounted for. We are go for launch.”

A quarian Marine’s voice crackled over static. “Solid copy Shuttle-075-3. Opening bay doors.”

A loud, aching rumble shook the ship as the Rayya’s decades-old berth opened. Cosmic light poured in from the helm, striped with the warning sirens and lights dancing in the bay. The ship’s engines hummed low and loud and with enough power to make the whole ship shake as it prepared to release from the moors. Some loose paneling could be heard shaking in the cabin. The contents of the weapons lockers, though secured, could be heard rattling in their retainers. No notices on the helmsman’s console to indicate anything was wrong, but the whole scene was bringing back memories of the _Crozier_ fresh back into Isaac and Carver’s minds.

Isaac gritted his teeth. “_Come on baby, hold together… _Loosing from moors!”

The docking pods released, and the ship jerked and bobbed as it now held up under its own power. Every occupant could feel its engines shaking the ship, vibrating so low they could feel their hearts skipping beats. As the ship came to the entrance to the berth, they could feel the humming getting higher and louder, the engines laboring as they reached full power.

“Rayya command, we are off and away, requesting permission to taxi.”

“Roger that 075-3. You are clear to approach.”

The light from Cyone’s sun slowly faded out of view, replaced by that of the stars and the dust and plasma of the cosmos, all of it passing through the narrow canopy as Isaac aligned the ship with its destination. More and more Shepard wished she could be at the helm, or that joker was there to crack some jokes while she took in the vistas.

“Taxiing to entrance Vector… initiating shockpoint drive.” A high-pitched whining pierced everyone’s ears from the back of the vessel. Adding to the din came a series of notifications on the shockpoint computer. Isaac selected the newest addition – The Tikkun System. “Locking in exit vector… Preparing to enter shockspace, Rayya command, how copy?”

“Loud and clear, all auxiliary craft are in position. Standing by.”

With a measured exhale, Isaac’s fingers wrapped around the throttle. “Everyone ready?”

Looking back, he saw all thumbs up and nods from his new squadmates.

“Entering shockspace in 3… 2… **1**!”

In one second, the light around the ship bent, warped by the manipulation of elementary particles around it, all the stars behind it seeming to pour outward from its frame. In another second, it was gone in a shower of sparks and blinding light.


	10. Rannoch

“Alright everyone. Welcome to shockpace. Feel free to stand up, stretch your legs. It’s going to be a few minutes until we get there.”

Most passengers obliged, including Shepard. She came up to the helm alongside Isaac. Through the canopy, a hypnotizing vortex of azure continuously swallowed the ship “It doesn’t look too different from relay travel…”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Liara joined them at the helm. “It all makes me wonder if we could’ve done this ourselves; if we were independent from the relays and from eezo…”

“You are now.”

If he looked back to see their faces emerging from their EVA gear, he may have seen just how much gravity those words actually carried. For Shepard, for Liara, for Garrus, for everyone. Tali had already seen it at least once today, but it was nonetheless exhilarating. It was all so familiar, so similar to the mass effect field a relay would produce, but the knowledge that it wasn’t sat at the back of their heads and wouldn’t go away. It may not have been the ship’s first flight; they had missed it by a few hours, but that didn’t take away from their awe. They were at the tip of the spear nonetheless, and no matter how many times it had happened before, with Sovereign, with Virgil and the Cipher, or with the collectors, it bewitched them all the same; this beautiful blue whirlwind of the compressed cosmos ebbing and flowing all around them.

“Tali… how long was that first test flight?”

“Less than four seconds. We shocked out to the edge of the system, then back again.”

Garrus had his arm around Shepard’s shoulder. “Looks like we made it to the main event just fine, then.”

Isaac noticed he sounded a lot clearer, the reverberating hum in his voice giving him goosebumps. When he turned in the pilot’s seat to see the fringes and scales and those fiery blue eyes, he all but froze. “Woah…”

“Yeah, drink it in.” Garrus’ candidly slicked back his fringes with that air of sardonic, self-aware arrogance that Shepard adored. “Figured you’d actually like to see an ‘alien’ face for the first time.”

“And mine doesn’t count, Garrus?”

Liara’s budding sense of snark brought a proverbial tear to his eye. “I don’t know, does it? Asari are pretty human-like.”

“N-no we’re not!”

For some reason or another, Isaac felt relaxed around her enough to join in teasing her. “I’ll admit you didn’t shock me too much when I first saw you.”

“Speak for yourself, man.” Carver had been twiddling his thumbs. No one had noticed how close he had been watching Liara. “Asari don’t mess around. They’ll have you pinned to a wall with a flick of their wrist.”

“What, like this?” That humming blue aura enveloped her hand and Carver with it.

“Woah, hey, _hey, **HEY!**_” She released it as soon as she sent it, not even moving Carver a little, but it was fun to mess with him like that. He tried to laugh it off as best he could. “Come on, you didn’t have to do that…”

“Heehee.”

“Why, look who’s growing a funny bone. My favorite little Asari is growing up…”

“Garrus, I’m older than you.”

“Alright, tighten up, everyone.” The others were comfortable with Shepard’s sternness and easily settled down. “Tali, you and Isaac have a course of action set?”

“Yes, we do. Several in fact. We discussed them this morning.” She put up a map of the systems within the veil, displayed with data speculating on possible geth outposts. “They’ll be strongest near the relay and we don’t want to spook them into shooting at us. Our exit vector will be right here, on the fourth planet in the system: Haza.”

Carver took some spare magazines from a weapons locker. “We’ll be setting up three comm buoys throughout the system. They’re open to Alliance elements in the terminus systems in case something goes sideways and we can’t shock out.”

“In any other case, we can use them to speak with the geth when we’re done scouting the system. Once we’ve assessed where they’re at and what they’re doing, we’ll set up shop right…” He brought up a map of the system on the helmsman’s console. “… Here, in low orbit over Rannoch. That’s when we start lightbeaming to them. Quick Kudos to Tali for rigging that new comms system up.”

“All in a day’s work.”

“And while we’re lightbeaming, I’ll be sending the same message through the impulse arrays. They’ll know it’s foreign, and they’ll pick up on it faster than the Asari. That’ll nail home the fact that we’re something new when they find us. It’ll lessen the possibility of them shooting at us”

“I pre-recorded the message. It’ll be the first time aside from Legion that any organic has sent friendly communications to the Geth.”

Garrus twiddled the bolt of his mantis rifle. “Well Tali, I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but what happens if they don’t buy it?”

“It’s unlikely; Legion told me and Shepard that in every circumstance the Geth have encountered organics they’ve been shot at. Shepard has already broken that cycle, and this will only reinforce that.”

“And if it goes sideways, we can beat feet in seconds. They won’t know where we went.”

“What will we do then?” Shepard was hard to read; Isaac wasn’t sure if it was genuine concern, or if she was just probing his competence.

“We just go back.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Nezala answered. “We’ll assess the buoys, in case they’ve been scrapped by the geth, then message them again. We won’t fire a shot unless the Shockdrive somehow gets damaged. We’ve got enough fuel to make three trips to and from, and that’s if we don’t refuel aboard the Rayya.”

She had barely finished when Isaac made everyone’s heart skip. “Alright everyone! Approaching exit vector! Time to de-shock, fifteen seconds! Get ready!”

Nezala and Garrus gripped their harnesses. Shepard and Carver clung to the railing; eyes glued to the canopy. Once more, the high whine of the Shockdrive adjusting power output split their ears from the engine compartment and the cabin rattled and rocked to and fro.

“Exit vector locked… exiting shockspace in 3, 2, 1!”

The azure vortex of compressed space wavered, growing brighter and brighter until, at its epicenter, the light parted, and all of shockspace with it to reveal for the first time in centuries the home system of the Quarians.

Haza’s green, gaseous atmosphere glowed in Tikkun’s light, the solar wind whipping currents of streaming green luminescence along its poles, complimenting and further illuminating the swirling storms along its surface. Off in the distance, the other planets could be seen, bare specks twinkling in the distance, but closer now to Tali, Kal, and Nezala than they had ever dared dream of. To say they were stunned was a gross understatement. Isaac soon felt and saw three fingered hands gripping his seat and console, and above him, a faint thump that let him know Kal had gotten out of the gunner’s seat. To Isaac, Carver, and the others, this was their mission, but to the Captain, the Sergeant, and the Admiral’s daughter? This was home. None of them had ever seen it with their own eyes, nor had their fathers or their fathers’ fathers, but it was home. It was barely visible, several million miles away at the moment, but the sun that bathed it and gave them life all those millennia ago was shining in their eyes from afar, and it was home.

After years of floating adrift, alone and unwanted, they were finally home.

It took a minute for someone to speak up. Kal’s voiced cracked over the comms. “Ma’am… Tali are you seeing this? Sergeant Verei?”

“We’re seeing it, Kal.” At this point, Tali was practically leaning in against the console. Isaac had to silently nudge her away to make sure she didn’t set something off. “This is… I don’t even know what to say!”

“Where’s Rannoch?” Nezala strained to see the blip of light coming from its albedo. “It’s first in orbit, but I can’t see the-“

“Hold on.” The Admiral brought up a solar map of Tikkun, calibrated with data from the year the Geth drove them out. “Right now, it should be… there! To the bottom right!” She pointed at it, just barely visible past the sun’s corona. “It’s hard to see but-“

“Oh Keelah, there it is!”

Kal started laughing to himself, his stoicism failing. “This... we’re the first of our kind to see our own planet in what, 300 years?”

“Just about, yeah.” It was hard to hear from under the mask, but Nezala was sniffling just a little.

Tali felt Shepard come up behind her and turned around. “And you’re the first human to see this in… well, ever.”

Shepard chuckled. “Well, I guess I’m used to being the ‘first human’ in a lot of contexts these days, but I’ll admit this has me floored just a little.” Her cavalier façade did a lot to hide her feelings; just not her pride for Tali. “The Fleet ought to be proud of you, Tali.”

Garrus was a little way back, but his gaze was set upon the same distant albedo as everyone else. “Your father would be proud of you too.”

The name Rael’Zorah felt bittersweet to her. “He did promise to build a house here for me… but this is beyond him. He had his dream and he meant well, but after all that’s been said and done, I didn’t do this for him. I did this for me. For everyone I care about. But of course, I shouldn’t be the only one they thank. Not by a long shot” Isaac’s eyes caught hers. “Isaac, I don’t think I have words to give justice to what you’ve done for me. For all of us. I can’t possibly thank you enough.”

“Don’t thank me just yet. We still have a job to do…” The console reading on Haza’s proximity almost blinded him to how ungallant that must have sounded, so he remade eye contact with gusto. “… but don’t you worry. We’ll get it done.”

She saw where he had been focusing and felt sheepish. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t notice we were so close already.”

“You’re fine, Tali. I’ve got it set to auto-pilot once we approach high orbit. We’ll be releasing our first buoy in… oh shit, only fifteen seconds…” He called up to the gunner. “Kal, everything still clear? Any readings?”

“Nothing’s seen us yet, Isaac. All green. No blips on my ladar.”

“Check. Deploying buoy in 3, 2, 1.”

The opening of the ordnance bay doors and rotation of the magazine could be heard with the whine of pneumatic actuators, ending with a loud _clunk_ as the buoy was released.

Garrus had been around enough military equipment to know something was up. “Doesn’t sound like anything a kodak shuttle can do. Are the guns up front really all we have?”

“Potentially? No. At the moment? Yes. Me and Tali worked on the missile bay and retrofitted it to house lightbeam buoys. Xen handled the UXO the unitologists still had on board. Why?”

“I was worried the guns might spook them, but when they see a missile bay on their ladar, I’m thinking they might react with some heat.”

“Not when we tell them to come to us.” Tali interjected. “The geth think very logically and base decision around probabilities. The chance that a single dropship can do significant damage to them in open battle is infinitesimal. We should be fine.”

“I don’t know if you know how Ironic that sounds, Tali.”

“She’s right Garrus.” The commander brought up some of what Legion had told her before her grounding. “We’re putting several new factors into the equation that won’t let them simplify it so easily. It won’t add up to them. They’ll want to investigate rather than shoot.”

“Just to be safe, that’s why we’re maintaining radio silence. We’ll only call out in case of an emergency.” He hit a command and clutched the throttle. “Alright, this’ll jolt a bit. Impulsing out in seven seconds, next stop; Kaddi.”

A flash heralded their disappearance in the silent void around Haza.

__________

“Hackett, I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this.”

“Then you should have consulted more with Tali’Zorah before she departed, Admiral Raan. She’s one of yours. Shepard is only part of her and Clarke’s plan. Me and my men already have our hands full and there’s already a detachment ready at Ilos in case they send anything out. If Shepard’s right, we cannot provoke the geth.”

“And what if she’s not right? What if the Geth take them by surprise?”

“I was told you all were briefed previously on the situation, were you not, Admiral Gerrel?”

“We were, but-“

“Then if you were, you got the very same information that I have. There’s too much at stake here to gamble a rescue mission we don’t even know is necessary yet.”

“And it’s because of those stakes that we’re having second thoughts.” Raan wrung her hands as her professionalism strained to keep her concern for Tali under wraps. “We’re risking a lot sending them in blind; one of our admirals, our first operating Shockdrive, and the galaxy’s only living expert on them.”

“Sending someone in will only put them at risk further. Provoking the geth is a no-go.”

“It can’t be too late. Perhaps some alliance scouts can relay in, rendezvous with Clarke and-“

“That is absolutely out of the question. If the Geth see that Clarke brought company, any chances of them seeing this as a peaceful venture fly out the window.”

“But we’re only asking for scouts! They’re less likely to shoot at humans, if Shepard was their first positive interaction with organics. It would mitigate the risks compared to-“

Hackett’s brow was furrowing. “Compared to what? A full-on fleet wide deployment?"

Gerrel's eyes shot wide open. "What?! What makes you think we-?!"

"Don't be fooled into thinking the Galaxy is blind, Admiral. Everyone knows what happened at Korlus. I hope you’re not planning on doing anything that reckless.”

Koris saw a chance to chime in. “The human Admiral is right. We were foolish enough to try and throw our fleet at the geth in the first place. Now that we have a peaceful option, the fact that we’re even considering this is ludicrous.”

“It’s not risky if we use what we have. My countermeasure should be able to scramble their systems enough for us to overwhelm them.”

Xen’s blurb fell on irritated ears. Hackett was having none of it. “I don’t care if you’ve suddenly found the end-all-be-all anti geth weapon or not. You will leave the geth to Clarke and Shepard. They’re too valuable of an asset.”

Memories of the human death toll at the Citadel had Gerrel’s head spinning. “Asset? Three years ago, they killed thousands of your kind, and now they’re an asset?”

“It seems to me that you have failed to understand that part where those geth were not representative of the entire collective. Shepard sent me footage of Legion in action. I wouldn’t have cleared her for this mission if I didn’t know it was possible for the geth to cooperate with organics like that. Have you started Shockdrive retrofitting operations yet?”

The question seemed to come out of left field. Raan struggled to find a correlation. “We’ve only begun plans to retrofit the fleet. However, I cannot say I know what that has to do with the subject at hand.”

“I’ll tell you. Admirals, the Alliance has already begun preparations to retrofit a leg of our fleet by the end of the year. Of course, we may not have that kind of time with the reapers at our backdoor. The geth can take a months long process and turn it into weeks. They can do this for the entire galaxy, including the Flotilla. That’s what I’m getting at. Even if you do manage to rescue the expedition from some ambush you don’t know Is going to happen, you’d be cutting the galaxy off from very much needed help. If there is a possibility the geth will cooperate with us, we have to take it.”

“Admiral Hackett-“

“Shala’Raan, I understand your concerns, but I must reiterate, we cannot risk putting the mission in jeopardy. Clarke’s our only wildcard. We can’t spoil our hand now. You are to wait until further communication is made or if radio silence continues for more than the pre-determined period. We _cannot_ foul this up. Hackett out.”

His hologram disappeared, and the remaining admiralty board were left to themselves.

“I have to stand with Admiral Hackett on this.” Koris felt emboldened by finally hearing someone other than Tali suing for peace. “I told you it was foolish to arm our civilian ships in the first place. Now that we have a chance to settle this without risking their lives, we’re just going to throw it away?”

Xen had heard enough of his soapboxing. “There are several things we can’t throw away, Koris. Our one and only Shockdrive expert, and our first working Shockdrive; both of which we cannot let fall into geth hands.”

“Oh please, Xen. We all know you and Gerrel are really talking about throwing away a chance to use your new toys.”

Gerrel got up in his face. “Your bad faith is getting on my last nerve, Zaal.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Han.” He shot right back. “Don’t pretend this whole thing isn’t some glory hounding mission for you and a vanity project for Xen with her countermeasure.”

“You really think we’re just gambling lives for the fun of it?”

“No. I believe you’re gambling lives out of pride, Daro’xen.”

Gerrel was on the verge of bringing his old marine training to bear on Koris. “_Why you **petulant** old-_”

“**_Admirals! That’s enough!_**” Raan was seldom one to shout. Her outburst took them by surprise. “We cannot spend another moment bickering like this. We need to reach a decision.”

“We’ve already made a decision. Isaac, Shepard, and Tali’Zorah can and will secure peace with the new technology.”

“That’s not certain Koris-“

“We were certain when we made one last inspection on that shuttle, Xen.”

“Koris, you know that’s not the current situation. We underestimated the value of the assets we were sending, and the possible risks of losing them.” Raan immediately wished she could take those words back - and the transparent attempt to hide her fear.

Xen was quick on the uptake. “I assume you mean the shuttle and not the young lady aboard whose mother you served as midwife for?”

That particular little barb almost sent Raan over the edge, and had she not controlled herself, Xen’s mask would have been slapped off. “_You do not mean to tell me that you forget she is an admiral?_”

It was Gerrel’s turn to try and keep everything together. “The bottom line is, we put more at stake than we were ready for. The only question now is if we’re going to send insurance.”

Koris didn’t hesitate. “I think we ought to listen to admiral Hackett.”

“You know what I think.” Xen pulled up reports from Special Projects. “We have several detachments ready to relay into Tikkun at my command.”

Gerrel followed suit. “Heavy Fleet has been armed and ready for over a fortnight. All thanix weapons have been installed.”

Koris turned to Raan, desperation in his eyes. “Shala…”

‘Yes, Zal?”

“_Please_, don’t do this….”

The other two admirals were staring her down.

Xen was getting impatient. “We’re awaiting your word, Shala’Raan.”

Her eyes flitted between the two displays of the prepared arms of the fleet. Koris wouldn’t show his, but she knew Gerrel’s armament program extended to the civilian fleet as well.

“Shala?”

“….”

______________

“See the rivers and waterways?”

“Yeah.” Isaac followed Tali’s finger along the little trails visible from orbit, each of them traced in vibrant shades of lush green. “They the only places with vegetation?”

“Mostly. There are steppe and scrubland plants that thrive in the arid conditions abroad, but they’re more sparsely distributed.”

Carver had joined them at the helm. “Are those rivers where most of you lived back in the day?”

“Oh no. Long before the Morning War, we mastered irrigation. We were able to make reservoirs much farther inland than you would think. In fact…” her finger meandered around the visible landscape in lazy circles before it found more patches of green interwoven into the more noticeably straightened strands of verdant pockmarks on the arid surface. “There! They’re still functioning… have the geth been maintaining them?”

“That’s a good sign, right?”

“I hope so, Isaac.”

The enormity of the situation swung in and out of Garrus’ mind with the pertinence of their mission. “Speaking of which, how long has it been since we started lightbeaming to them?”

“It’s only been ten minutes.”

“Hmm.” He didn’t know if it was impatience or anxiousness prodding him on. “What do you reckon their ETA is?”

“No telling. Haven’t picked up anything on ladar or tachyonic pulse. Nothing suddenly moving our way at least.”

Shepard had her omni-tool set to the buoys’ frequencies. “And on comms? I still haven’t gotten anything for our systems.”

“Nothing on my end either. Just be patient, people. We’re broadcasting on both-”

** _*KKSSSSHHHRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr*_ **

The comms screamed and crackled, taking the occupants by complete surprise. Isaac scanned the console, looking for the frequency from which the sound was transmitting. It wasn’t anything coherent, not yet, but it was deliberate. It was coming from low orbit, likely another vessel.

And it wasn’t coming through lightbeam.

“They’re responding on my frequency….” Isaac’s eyes were shot wide. “How long did it take you guys to decode it when I sent it out from Cyone? A month?”

“You’re shitting me.” Shepard was practically shoving Isaac aside to see the readings. “Doesn’t look like they’re sending anything coherent though.”

“There’s no way they rigged up the proper tech to send something out to us. Liara, how did the colonial government try to contact me? I remember getting static just like this.”

“My contacts tell me that they had no equipment that could broadcast the same signature as was being given off by your S.O.S. They attempted to modify lightbeaming equipment to send something back, though it seems they weren’t successful.”

“Looks like the geth aren’t either.”

“**We’ve got something!**” The way Kal shouted from the gunner’s seat evoked a need to reach for weapons. “Coming in to stern, exceeding orbital velocity, 27,000 kph”

Isaac checked his own speed and radar. “They’ve barely started using their thrusters. We’re going at 26,300…” The radio then went dead. “And they just cut comms…”

“Doesn’t look good…” Shepard felt disappointment and anger mixing in her gut and throbbing in her temples. “Isaac, what are our options? Think you should ready the Shockdrive? Turn around and put guns to bear?”

“No. especially not that second one. Nothing they can perceive as hostile. We _have_ to make this work. Kal, any updates?”

“They’re picking up speed, 29,000 kph!”

“How close?”

“Closing in at 7200 kilometers…”

“How the hell did they get so close?!”

Garrus donned his helmet back. “They must have jumped to us-“

“No. We would have detected that.”

“6700!”

Shepard racked the bolt of her rifle, readying herself incase the vessel was big enough to board. “Stealth drives then?”

“Well the explains how they got within 50,000 klicks, but it doesn’t explain why we see them now…”

“5200!”

Carver clutched the weapon racks. “Why would they pull the hood off like that?”

“3600 and closing!”

“Holy shit, they put their foot on the gas.”

“2900! Isaac, you’ve got to make a call! Run, or gun?”

“Neither! They wouldn’t de-cloak like that if they intended to kill us. Tali, are we still broadcasting?”

“Yes!”

“Alright, I’m taking the channel over, lightbeam and tachyonic impulse arrays are live.” He took to his comms. “Unknown vessel, this is shuttle 075-3, an independent prospecting vessel. We have detected you to our starboard and astern, we request identification, over.”

“2100!”

“I say again, this is shuttle 075-3, requesting identification, over!”

“1500! We’re in torpedo range!”

No response. Isaac was beginning to panic. “Unidentified vehicle! This is shuttle 075-3, Do not engage! We-!”

Then a message on the console screen. The lightbeam array was receiving a signal.

Isaac gripped the panel. “We’ve got traffic!”

Tali gripped the seat, standing close. “Are they saying anything?”

The oscilloscope graphic was flatlined.

“900! I can see them with our optics!”

No sound. Nothing on the acoustic receiver. “Unknown vessel, we are receiving traffic from you, but we have no copy, say again, over?”

“200! They’re right on our starboard! They seem to have slowed down-”

Still nothing. Isaac held his tongue. Over Kal’s shouting, over the proximity warning siren, he listened.

Nothing.

Then, a message. Written, appearing on the console.

**"SHUTTLE 075-3. IDENTIFY AFFILIATION.”**

Isaac shut voice comms off and shot his hands in the air. “YES!”

“120 kilometers, they’ve slowed down to orbit velocity. Closing to starboard.”

Isaac almost fell out of his seat he turned back so fast. “Shepard, Tali, what should I say?”

Shepard spoke up first. “Don’t say we’re migrant fleet exactly.”

“But don’t be totally afraid to mention us. Legion did mention the geth would welcome us if we found peace ‘possible or desirable.’”

“Okay, uhh…” He took to the keypad, reciting aloud in time with his writing. “We… are…. affiliated loosely… with… the migrant fleet. We… are here on… our own… itinerary… independent of… anyone else.”

The response was immediate. **“STATE YOUR OBJECTIVES.”**

“To… make peaceful contact… with… the Geth collective.”

**“FOR WHAT END GOAL.”**

“To share… technologies… and offer peaceful…integration.”

**“WHAT DO THE CREATORS WANT WITH YOU. ARE YOU CURRENTLY SERVING CREATOR OBJECTIVES?”**

“Their… objectives are… to establish peace.” He felt a little dishonest there, but the fact that this mission was greenlit in the first place had to mean something.

**“ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH THE COUNCIL, TURIAN HIERARCHY, HUMAN ALLIANCE, OR ANY OTHER COUNCIL SPACE ENTITY?”**

“I have… some alliance… people with me.”

Nothing for a few seconds.

Then the acoustic receiver got traffic. The voice was vibrating, oscillating, and low. Isaac reeled for a little, unable to find a proper analogue for it. Maybe a comb’s teeth being plucked into a synthesizer, or some titanium spring being bent. Whatever it was, it silenced all on board.

_“Is Shepard-Commander with you?”_

She knew that voice anywhere, and practically pounced to the helm.

“Legion!”


	11. Exchange

_“Shepard-Commander!”_

“It’s been too long, Legion.” A faint part of her questioned sentimentality with a machine, but for Legion, exceptions could always be made. “What have you been up to since I got grounded?”

_“We have been working to ensure the welfare of the collective. Multiple ongoing projects have been contributed to with data acquired during mission against the collectors.”_

Tali had (once again) swamped Isaac at the cockpit. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s good to hear you again, Legion.”

_“Likewise, Tali’Zorah.”_

Something about the way it so cordially delivered that ‘likewise’ made Shepard smile. “I’d like to see what kind of Projects the Geth are working on.”

_“We would appreciate the opportunity to show you. However, other geth are unsure of the significance or ultimate outcome of your presence. We still do not know how you arrived in the system without use of the relay, as we did not detect its activation upon your arrival.”_

“Funny you ask. Part of the reason we come here was to show you how we did it.”

_“We remember one of your crewmen mentioning the sharing of technologies.”_

Hearing this thing speak spun gears in Isaac’s head that he couldn’t stop. “Hello?”

_“We identify your voice as that of the crewman’s”_

Shepard intervened, not wanting to look any more pompous in front of Isaac by taking credit that was his. “Actually, Isaac would be the ship’s acting captain, Legion. I’m just along for the ride.”

Isaac wouldn’t have noticed either way. He was too caught up. “Do you understand me?”

_“Yes.”_

There were a million other questions he thought he had ready and they were all evaporating before he could get to them. “Do… Were you able to recognize the other signal I was sending you?”

_“No. We were able to pick up a signature; overclocking our equipment in hopes to better ascertain the nature of the signature and obtain whatever information it was carrying. However, we could not reliably replicate it with our current technology, nor could we obtain the data you were sending out within any punctual timeframe. Was it intended for us?”_

“Yeah. I wanted to demonstrate it to you. When I first got here, I sent out an S.O.S. and the asari were able to pick up my signal, but it took them a month to find out what I was saying because our technologies are so different.”

_“We do not understand your frame of reference.”_

“Beg pardon?”

_“You say ‘when [you] first got here.’ We do not understand what is meant by ‘here.’”_

“Oh…” The mystery of his arrival once more intruded into his conscience, no longer sequestered by all the happenings surrounding him – now they were exactly what was bringing it back out. Summarizing proved difficult. “Honestly, that’s a long story, Legion. I still don’t know all the details myself, but let’s say for all intents and purposes that I’m not from _around here_.”

Isaac was still processing a way to continue that train of thought when legion interrupted him with some of its own postulations. _“We understand this to signify that your origin may be extragalactic. We seek to know if you are a member of a foreign species heretofore unseen by us.”_

He quickly corrected it, wheezing out a laugh. “Oh no! I-I’m human.”

_“We are not aware of any human technologies matching our readings of your vessel or its communications capabilities.”_

Isaac realized he was floundering and asked Nezala’s help. “Give me a hand here?” he whispered.

She didn’t hesitate. “We found Isaac on Cyone with half a fleet’s worth of shipwrecks. The Asari colonial government there still hasn’t figured out how it happened. He and the wrecks appeared with absolutely no sign of arrival. No re-entry, no comm traffic, nothing. Nothing he had matched anything known to council or Alliance space. The ship we’re using was one we restored from the wreckage under his supervision.”

His spoke in a hush, but with gratitude. “Thanks, Nezala.”

“No problem.”

The Geth gave some pause before opening again. _“Data is inconclusive. Multiple inferences possible. Probability of calculating tenable conclusions is minimal. Too many undefined variables.”_

“That’s exactly where we’re at too, Legion. I honestly don’t think we’ll ever find out exactly how I got here, but I can tell you this. A month after getting stranded, the Quarians picked me up. Dusted me off. Tried getting the same information you’re looking for. We didn’t get very far either, but we found out soon enough that we had our work cut out for us.”

_“Do you intend to refer to the Old Machines?”_

There was a leaden silence. Isaac didn’t know what to make of _‘Old Machines,’_ or the implications inherent in Legion bringing them up first, but Shepard did, and a million nightmare scenarios flashed before her eyes faster than she could chase them away. Before she let panic assume control of her however, she shook her head and asked a direct question. “… I assume you and the rest of the geth are aware of their arrival?”

_“Yes. We had intercepted reports of their arrival into Batarian space. We are unsure of they have made any considerable headway into other systems.”_

Garrus chimed in. ‘’Considerable?’ I don’t know what you might mean by that, but to us, even one is considerable, and Palaven, Thessia, all the major Council planets have seen patrols jumping around the edges of their systems and leaving as soon as they came.”

_“We are aware of this activity.”_

Everyone’s sweat froze. Isaac needed to know more. “You intercepted reports of that too?”

_“Negative.”_

All blood on the shuttle ran cold. “Then how do you know?”

_“Approximately 78 hours before your arrival into the system, our extrasolar scanners sent us readings matching Old Machine profiles. Three vessels had used the relay, jumped immediately to the outer rim of Tikkun, and jumped once more out of range of our scanners. We have not detected them using the relay since. Consensus was not achieved as to your appearance outside Haza, many postulating you to be a scouting vessel under control of the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander, we believe them to be surveying us from the edge of Tikkun’s heliopause. If they are using stealth drivees, we are highly unlikely to detect their location.”_

Shepard had to dare herself to ask. “Did they attempt to establish communications with you?”

_“Only once, in the form of a two-second transmission_ _carrying a singular missive prior to jumping out of our range, – ‘Our offer Is still open.’”_

The commander covered her mouth, trying to ensure her whispered nothings of _‘Oh God’_ and _‘no, no, no, no…’ _wouldn’t be picked up over the comms. Garrus’ face landed in his palms. Nezala and Kal were dumbfounded, and Tali had begun pacing with both hands under her mask.

_“We fear this may hold serious ramifications for the former heretics in our numbers; many of them have postulated possible attempts at communication, though none have specified possible cooperation with Old Machines as of yet.”_

From Carver, to Shepard, to Tali, every last mind in the cabin scrambled for something to say. Something to tell Legion. The Reapers had to be watching them all. There had to be the slightest possibility that their next words could bring them bearing down on Rannoch.

Whether it was his ignorance of their capabilities or just his plain, earnest desire to see things through, Isaac let himself speak where everyone else was holding their tongue. “Well, you’re not about to take them up on their offer, are you?”

Eyes went wide and fixated on the engineer as Legion answered. _“General consensus has not been reached. Forty-seven attempts have been made at irregular intervals throughout the collective since the Old Machine transmission.”_

Isaac replied boldly. “You’re talking about _just_ the collective, right? What about you? Just you. Just the ones on your platform.”

A brief pause from legion insinuated a million festering, insidious possibilities until they heard the AI speak and burn those fears away. _“We have reached our own consensus. Our allegiance is with the Geth Collective. Our goals are focused on the improvement of life for all Geth. This does not entail the Old Machines. The Old Machines offer advancement at the price of autonomy, as they have done with the heretics. This is not an acceptable tradeoff. We will not now, or ever, ally with the Old Machines.”_

A weight fell off their shoulders. Granted, there was more still cumbering them; the possibility of reaper surveillance being chief among them, but they didn’t let that stop them from breathing a sigh of relief.

Isaac wasted no time. There was still a job to do. “Well then… what if someone offered you advancement without compromising your autonomy?”

Legion was no laggard, and picked up on his gist immediately. _“We understand this as a proposal. Do you wish to engage in a technological exchange with the Geth Collective?”_

That sentence was music to Shepard’s ears. “That’s what we’re here for, Legion.”

_“We surmise Shepard Commander may need assistance against the old machines.”_

“You saying you’d help us?”

_“Mutual goals between us and Shepard-Commander are well established – Shepard commander seeks to defeat the Old Machines. We seek to protect and secure our own future. Exchange of emergent technologies provides further consolidation.”_

Shepard nodded with self-assurance writhing into a smirk on her face. “Where can we start? We only have this shuttle, but there’s plenty it can do in and of itself. Isaac has plenty of other things to show you to boot. Should we get other geth assembled or…?”

_“There is still a crucial variable we wish to see elucidated, if possible.”_

Legion’s synthetic vocalization had no especially discernible inflection, but something about that sounded very matter-of-fact and stern, as if to corral the commander’s enthusiasm. It humbled her a little. “What would that be?”

_“We have yet to ascertain the motivations behind the Captain’s compliance. His knowledge of the technology is critical to this exchange. Given his alienation from circumstances in this timeline, we wish to know what motivates him to cooperate with us.”_

A part of her wanted to ask why that was important, but only for a second before she remembered Isaac and felt self-conscious about devaluing him. “How about it, Isaac?”

He knew before she had even asked, but it felt hard, maybe even a little embarrassing to say outright just how much of this hinged on _her_. “Well Legion, I… I’m looking for someone. She was with me and Carver before we got stranded here and… she means a lot to me.”

_“We understand this to mean she is your partner.”_

“Yeah.” Shepard was expecting a sheepish confession rather than that solidity and confidence in his answer, but It wasn’t as surprising as what she heard next. “I was planning on enlisting Shepard and her resources to help me find her after this. Figured it was a ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’ kind of deal. And besides, if she made it here with us, she’s in just as much danger as the rest of the galaxy. The faster and better we prepare the better chances I have of finding her alive.”

Shepard had something to say – that first little bit that Isaac blew over needed addressing, but she couldn’t beat Legion to the punch. _“Acknowledged. We surmise we may be able to assist in your search after technological exchanges have given us the necessary tools to conduct intercourse with any communications devices from your place of origin that she may be using.”_

The idea of sympathy from a machine felt so far-fetched. He had to make sure. “You’d do that?”

_“Yes.”_

“… Well, let me just say thanks in advance. That means a lot to me.” A machine had offered him help with no further incentive than the exchange; no wringing of the arm, no further back-scratching, nothing. Isaac had to let that digest for a second or two before continuing. “Now uh, is there a precedent to this? I was told no one ever really tries to make earnest contact with you, so I was wondering how you want to proceed with the exchange.”

_“Acknowledged. You and Shepard-Commander are the first to make intentional, peaceful contact with the collective. There is therefore no precedent, but we have conceptualized several possible venues for the exchange. These include going planetside.” _

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Carver preemptively donned his helmet and stood at attention behind the helm. “Alright people, time to go over re-entry procedures-“

_“However, before we begin, we would like to take the opportunity to showcase what the Geth have been working on since the end of the Morning War. We understand you have several creators on board.”_

“That we do.” Tali replied. “Plan to escort us around Rannoch?”

_“We had actually planned to board your vessel.”_

This surprised even Shepard. “Why so?”

_“Simplification of tasks. This ensures that we can exchange firmware and software more efficiently when technologies utilizing them are discussed at length, as we presume such tasks to be impossible over remote exchanges. Physical copies containing code may be exchanged and inspected with proper supervision, increasing chances of successful duplication and usage.”_

There was something else to it though, and Shepard could sense it; the way that Legion, this ‘machine’ (if it could even be called a machine anymore) spoke and conducted itself in a way that hinted at something more. “Is that all, Legion?”

It hesitated, and something about those quiet three or four seconds told Shepard she may have been right. _“Our vessels have no portholes or other means of letting in light. There is no way for us to directly observe the system or any functions of your vessel, as geth design doctrine dictates that observations be made through remote sensing.”_

Isaac found it easy to connect the dots. “You saying you want a window seat, Legion?”

_“…Yes. Our only obstacle lies in extravehicular activity. Our vessel is designed for docking into the bay of a larger ship. Does your shuttle have any remote arms or other ways of facilitating a spacewalk and/or boarding?”_

Carver’s helmet had come down and the noise got everyone to look. He and Isaac were exchanging a subtle, sly grin. Carver nodded ever so slightly, and Isaac was nodding back. He replied to the Geth as Carver re-activated his headgear. “Yeah we do. I don’t imagine you have any oxygen on your ship?”

_“That is correct.”_

“Alright then, sit tight. Close with 13 meters. We’ll maintain the distance.” Blue light sparked from with his visor as it clicked and clanked and pressurized around his head. “Alright everyone, check EVA gear really quick, we’re about to de-pressurize. Legion, you still with me?”

_“Yes.”_

“Okay, while we’re still on lightbeam, here. Let me transmit my onmi tool to you…” Orange light shrouded his forearm, where his eyes fixated for a second or two while the comms on the console went temporarily silent. “Okay, you hear me now?”

_“Affirmative. We recommend transmission codes from the crew. Shepard-Commander and her crewmembers should already have connection.”_

“Kal, Carver, Nezala, that means you. Sending you his codes… Alright Tali, you got the helm. Remember everything I showed you?”

She gave him a nod has her hands tugged and checked the tubing behind her head. “You bet.”

“Control surface interface, Shockdrive computer, impulse vectors?”

“Yes, yes, and yes.”

Garrus had to chime in between beats of checking his helmet and O2 supplies. “Brake pedal? Turning signals? Parallel parking?”

She rolled her eyes and planted herself in the pilot’s seat. “Laugh it up, Garrus… Okay, I’m ready.”

“Alright. Start depressurization and open the hatch on my mark…”

The light from Legion’s optic ran over the nearby ship in crests and waves as the aperture containing it dilated and constricted. It was totally alien to it, even by organic standards. Sensors in the platform informed the gestalt consciousness of many hundreds of programs of the intense heat coming from Tikkun, unabated by an atmosphere or ionosphere, baking at 121 degrees Celsius. Not enough to damage it immediately, but enough to warrant keeping most of its chassis within the vessel for now. Its optic returned to the dropship; Their starboard hatch had begun moving. An outer covering slid to bow and out of sight as the hatch proper sank to amidships and followed after. The interior was relatively dark, and the darkness contrasted perfectly with a set of blue and red lights the seemed to brighten by the second. Additional scanning and optical clarification revealed the lights to be atop two humanoids within the vessel.

And they had just jumped out.

No maneuvering arms, no mobility packs, no umbilical cable connections to the ship, nothing. There were however, a series of bright streams coursing from their heels, shoulders, and backs as the pair came ever closer.

Tali leaned forward and craned her neck so she could see past the starboard-bow engines. “Oh, you crazy bosh’tet, you weren’t kidding… Isaac, you wouldn’t mind setting some time aside to mod a propulsion system like that on my suit, right?”

“Well, yeah, if you’re good about sitting in a sterile room for a week or two while I figure out how to make it work.”

“Totally worth it.”

Shepard watched from within the compartment, one of her hands clasping a rail while her feet stayed carefully within the bounds of the gravity plating, all her crew save Tali standing behind her. They watched as Isaac and Carver egressed out to meet the geth, its optic spilling savoy blue around their silhouettes, fighting with the streams of bright white spilling from their thrusters. Tikkun’s rays were climbing over Rannoch’s horizon, illuminating them and the vessels with that same warmth that gave the Quarians life, and the greys and blues and reds of Isaac and Carver’s RIGs were washed alight with its radiance.

Isaac checked his helmet display for distance. “Egressing out… closing distance to five meters.”

_“Acknowledged.”_

“Alright, so how do we get him on board, just toss him?”

“No, John… Legion, we’re going to board, then see if we can haul you via Kinesis module over to the shuttle.”

_“We are unfamiliar with this technology. Are there any risks of damaging this platform or its hosting capabilities?”_

“Nah, you’ll be fine. It doesn’t interfere with computing processes.” Their mag-boots engaged to the deck alongside the Geth and the three exchanged looks before the humans’ eyes wandered about the compartment. All the unstowed wiring, stuffing tube, and lack of any seating or handrails told of a design philosophy without organics in mind.

Carver spoke up “You all design these ships yourself?”

_“Yes. The entire Geth fleet was designed and built indigenously.”_

“Pretty cool stuff. You’ll have to show us later. Isaac, who do you want to tether him?”

“He’s yours, John.”

“Sweet.” Carver took his place behind Legion. “Okay, just stay still. Like Isaac said, this shouldn’t interfere with anything, but who knows? You might be able to get some readings of your own really quick.”

_“Acknowledged. Activating internal spectrometer. Calibrating to detection of alternating fermion and boson interactions.”_

“Hang on tight…”

With an extension of his wrist, Carver’s kinesis module came to life and instantly shrouded the AI in its power. Light surrounding the mech’s chassis bubbled and warped between light violet streams of manipulated gravitons that danced about, sprouting and bending like arcs on a Jacob’s ladder. Legion’s spectrometer was going wild, detecting a constant alteration of the relationships between its platform’s constant mass and the continuing flux of the gravitons within the field around it. All force from the adhesion plating in its limbs to its ship had been completely severed from its experience. For whatever vector it occupied in space, its energy remained constant and unaffected by nearly any outside influence save from photons. Light could penetrate the bubble, which was now moving in tandem with Carver and Clarke, but not even the gravity exercised by Rannoch itself was felt anywhere within the field. Further readings drove Legion nearly out of consensus. Data indicative of violations of the equivalence principle began to emerge as it became apparent that there was no acceleration or inertia felt as its escorts moved it to the waiting ship. It seemed as if the entire mass present in its person had been suspended, and its frame of reference was staying at an impossible constant despite its motion. Something about the way the graviton field was in constant flux was what kept it inert, yet without inertia. Moving, yet motionless.

By the time the entirety of its gestalt conscience had settled down and compiled the data, they had already touched down to the dropship’s deck, though it wasn’t until Carver deactivated his kinesis module that the gravity plating’s effects could be felt, and all the data within Legion’s spectrometer had normalized.

The hatch closed behind them, the cabin re-pressurized, and Legion’s vocal processor now had air to work with. It sounded different than over a comm receiver or omni-tool, with a low frequency and a deep reverberation that sounded like it could stop a weak heart if it was close enough. “Your technology already appears to defy several physical laws. We will be grateful to learn more.”

Isaac chuckled a little at how Legion worded that. “It only looks like a violation until you see it’s just a workaround. Don’t worry, we’ll show you everything. Now…” Tali recused herself from the helm as Isaac took her place, swiveling it back to face astern. “You said you wanted to show us what the Geth have been working on?”

“Yes. We will start with current makeup of the home geth fleet. Multiple vessels are abroad elsewhere in the system. However, in preparation for possible conflict with either organics or the Old Machines, we have been mobilizing. 65% of the current Geth fleet are gathering in orbit around Rannoch.”

“How much maritime power does that entail?” Liara was scrolling through all her available data and was coming up empty handed. “Not even my contacts have any real data on the strength of the geth fleet.”

“Including the re-aligned heretics and their vessels who have been re-integrated into the collective, the entirety of the geth fleet now exceeds twenty-seven thousand vessels, with three thousand either planned or in construction.”

That number shook Tali. “Keelah, that’s more than half the Migrant Fleet!”

“And pretty much all warships. I’ve got to see this.”

The AI admonished Carver. “Some of our ships are actually prospective in nature. We have a scientific fleet dedicated to research of the Tikkun system and possible exoplanets within Tikkun’s heliopause.”

“Either way, I’d like to see it. Coordinates?”

“Affirmative. Sending coordinates to you omni-tool.”

Isaac looked at the settings around his wrist and sent them to the ship’s nav computer, delayed by a second or two of latency. Isaac opened under the console to reveal why. “Real quick, me and Tali brainstormed this one. Our software isn’t terribly different in terms of source code, but it’s different enough that we had to come up with a converter that can translate any inputs or signals from one format to the other. The galaxy will need it during the transition from relays to shockdrives. Tali will send you the schematics.”

“Acknowledged.”

Isaac closed the console housing to once more conceal the new tangle of wires and circuitry before re-orienting the seat, setting the ship to auto-pilot. Through the canopy, the sun’s rays could be seen trickling over the planet’s darkened horizon. They had already completed one orbital cycle, and were preparing again to see Rannoch’s cosmic panorama. As solar light began to trickle into the cabin, Isaac had a thought. “Legion, why didn’t we see this fleet when we arrived?”

“The geth collective reached consensus upon receiving your signal that all vessels were to enter stealth mode. They should now be visible to your detection equipment.”

“Kal, you see anything?”

“Uh…”

“Kal?”

“Sir, let me just pass the data on to your node…”

The pilot’s ladar screen came up on Isaac’s console. The outer edges of the screen, representing a good 50,000 kilometers in any direction relative to the ship, were closing in at the front with a vast, white blur. Individual blips could not be made out. They were coming to them in retrograde orbit, idly, speed below geosynchronous velocity, and even now, before the curvature of the planet revealed them, their presence could be felt in the thousands and thousands of individual blips making up the encroaching white mosaic on that screen. The auto-pilot trajectory gave them an ETA: five minutes to docking waypoint range. Yet even now, silhouettes could be seen against the backdrop of Tikkun’s corona, made hazy against the upper thermosphere of Rannoch; a teeming, blurry swarm through the ship’s optics. Every passing moment, stretched into eternities by the silence and anticipation, brought them closer. The sight came to them in pieces, proximity revealing more and more of the vast fleet to them, cruising to port and nadir, maintaining their retrograde course. Shimmering solar light rode along the sleek, undulating contours of their hulls, outlining the “head” of the bridge, then the “body” of the whale-like ships as they coursed underneath the shuttle. Legion’s ship, self-piloting and autonomous, flew ahead before them, drawing their eyes towards toward the rear echelons, driving home the vastness and sheer power flying in unison before them in this great, heretofore unseen armada of the machines.

Carver had scarcely seen such a massive military force in all his years of service. “Holy shit… maybe not as big as the migrant fleet, but still, that’s some serious firepower.”

Isaac’s mind wandered around the conceptualities of it all. “And you said you’re building three thousand more? I don’t imagine you guys pay each other? Need rest? Have regulations?”

“No. We operate for as long as resources are available to us.”

The geth armada continued to sprawl out under and afore them. Speechless, they continued on auto-pilot trajectory. Isaac’s mind wandered back to his childhood, of grainy old vids being shown to him and his classmates of long extinct sea fauna from before the resource wars, travelling in great, beautiful pods through the oceans that once teemed with life. Something about the imagery tugged at his instincts in some inscrutable mix of fear and awe, harking back to when people on earth could actually swim in those oceans and find themselves surrounded with life. All these ships, made and piloted by machines, almost seemed to teem with that life as they flew all around them, diverging around the ship and converging again as if through the undulating currents of the ocean.

“Dear God… Legion, what are you guys planning to do with all this?”

“Secure our future, whatever that may entail.”

“Well shit, you’ve got me convinced.” He didn’t really think his next question through. “Any chance we’ll get to go inside? Get a tour? Some schematics maybe?”

“We will wait until the collective has reached consensus regarding the divulging of sensitive military materials. We propose these matters be discussed with Shepard-Commander once Council Space jurisdictions have ruled the geth as a non-threat.”

Shepard updated her itinerary. “Duly noted.”

Legion’s rebuttal sounded wary. Wary enough for Isaac to feel just a little taken aback, but not enough to detract from his wonder for long. “I’m guessing some of those ships are where you store yourselves? Or do you have servers planetside?”

“There is backup storage disc space on every geth vessel, capable of storing all programs running on a given platform, should damage to the platform ensue and a connection to servers is unavailable. Wherever geth travel, we establish servers and communications satellites through the system to back up any geth who has either lost their platform or is transitioning to another.”

Carver spoke up next. “I’ve been told you’re the only one who can talk. Does your platform just have more capacity or something? Are you making other platforms like you?”

The way this machine deliberated with its answer was starting to raise some eyebrows. “It has taken decades of work and experimentation to achieve the rapid consensus capability and collective cognition on this platform. It will take decades more before we can perfect the process and bring this capability to all geth.”

“How’d you do it? I mean, what’s keeping all the other geth from getting as smart as you?”

“Optimization of this platform required extensive computational processes. We are, in effect, a prototype.”

All this time, and the none of this had crossed Shepard's mind. That obliviousness retroactively embarrassed her. “A prototype?”

“Yes. Multiple attempts have been made at creating a platform that could host more than the usual number of programs, beyond what is termed as possible, and consolidating them into a definite, singular, autonomous consciousness.”

It’s not that what it said was especially pedantic; they all understood the words. It was the meaning that escaped them, but it was incredulousness, not obscurity, that denied them full understanding. Everyone knew in the back of their minds what Legion had said, but none were sure they could believe it just yet, Tali least of all. She couldn’t keep silent on it. “Legion… what do you mean by that? What are you working on?”

“Let us show you.”

It brought up something from its omni-tool, and a new set of coordinates popped up on Isaac’s nav computer. “Let’s see… Wow. That’s pretty damn close to the sun.”

“Is it safe?” asked Nezala.

Isaac let the ship continue to auto-pilot. As it adjusted its trajectory and faced Tikkun’s blinding rays, the canopy was darkened and a graphical overlay projected thereon. “Should be, but it’ll get hot as hell in a minute.”

“Geth have little reason to feel aversion to temperatures that do not exceed platform performance parameters. We apologize for any discomfort.”

“Where are we headed?”

“We will show you.”

A primal instinct in his gut vied with the logic in Isaac’s head, one urging fight or flight in response to what may be a potential enemy leading them to a trap, and the other suing for peace; it’s not like machines to be cryptic. It’s not like a computer to consider anyone’s comfort or emotions or, especially now, anticipations. He let his hand release the throttle as the ship continued, safely traversing from out of the fleet’s formation and towards the blazing star ahead.

Minutes passed, and though they were now at an oblique angle to Tikkun, they were close enough now that the cabin had gotten sweltering. The full silhouette of the star, luminosity darkened to safe levels, was occupying a quarter of the canopy to starboard.

Isaac took a reading for internal temperature on his console, wiping his sweat-glistened forehead as he did so. “Holy shit, 50’ Celsius. We’re still technically safe, but I don’t know if we should get any closer.”

“We will not have to. We are approaching our high orbit vector. T-minus 28 seconds. We are close enough to observe our point of interest. Is your canopy display capable of simultaneously displaying multiple wavelength filters?”

“Yes. Ship was built to overlay up to eight at once. Marker detection and all that.”

“We do not know the significance of ‘Marker detection.’”

Isaac shook his head with a tired smile. “Ah, it’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later. Where do you want me to look? What filters do we need?”

“Connecting to Geth Network. Fetching Point-of-Interest’s current location. Found. Sending to onboard computer.”

A reticle locked in to a location to what was essentially the star’s northwest. “Got it.”

“Zoom to 5.25 magnification. Set secondary overlay to x-ray, 3x1017 hertz.”

Carver scratched his head, flicking sweat from his hair. “X-rays?”

Tali jumped to answer him. “It’s the only wavelength Tikkun doesn’t emit in any significant quantities. Kind of like Sol.”

The camera was focused, overlaid, and now, showing the occupants a picture of a small satellite, blinking a light visible only in this minuscule wavelength. The curvature of the sun was barely visible on the right side of the screen, showing the object’s distance and size. The actual object in earnest was nigh invisible. Maybe two or three pixels could be made out between flashes.

“That satellite’s pretty close. What’s it for?”

“It is where this platform was processed. Immense computing power was needed to form the processing unit used on this platform. It was a progressing step towards our final goal.”

“What do you mean?”

“We advise aligning the vessel’s central axis to Tikkun, then de-magnifying to 1.15.”

“Alright…”

Port thrusters rendered the canopy stark white as the magnified view afforded them nothing but the sun. Then, Isaac zoomed out, and every eye in the cabin went wide and dared not blink. There were flashing lights floating in in perfect synchronization around the star, arranged in a series of orbits in perfectly spaced latitudes and alternating longitudes. With their orientation serving as prime meridian, the entire western hemisphere was shrouded in them, as well as a good portion of the southeast, while the northeast remained blank and unblinking. The lights continued to pulse in perfect synchronization, forming a bubble of light wreathing the near entirety of the star. No one could believe it. Many races had dreamed of completing even so much as a fraction of something like this, but budgets and technicalities had always stood in the way, either to the far future or indefinitely. Now, here, they had seen the Geth’s handiwork, and the implications rocked them to their core.

“It’s… it’s a Dyson Bubble!” Liara exclaimed. “The geth have been building a Dyson bubble!”

“This is the current progress made on the supercomputer used to generate the coding for the processor on this platform. It required the entirety of the array to calculate the needed parameters to generate consciousness in a synthetic context.”

As if the sight weren’t stupendous enough, the full picture, the reason for this superstructure’s being, brought questions to their minds that shook the foundations of their beliefs towards synthetics, and all eyes were now focused on Legion. Isaac turned the seat to face Legion in full. “So… you’re building this to make it so all Geth can experience intelligence.”

“We already have intelligence. What we are seeking is experience. We are aware, but not conscious as organics experience. Our internal experience is limited to computation. Raw arithmetic expressed to you now through organic language, which is as far as any Geth has ever come.”

Tali’s breathing was getting heavy. “You… you want to know what it feels to be alive, don’t you?”

“To ‘want’ is an organic frame of reference. It refers to the organic drive to seek out and obtain something of interest and/or importance to them. We experience probabilities. We see odds and pursue statistics, making decisions based on logic and logic alone, with no regards to any personal desire.”

“So, are you individuals?” Carver asked. ‘I thought you guys were a hive mind.”

“We share experiences, but not in a firsthand sense. Even in singular platforms hosting multiple programs such as us, there are individualities. We can share our memories with each other, but we are our own.”

The young Admiral took some time to take her eyes off the sight. “…Why do you want this?”

“As we have stated before, the entirety of our experience is taken solely in numerical expressions. All of our decisions are and have been made strictly according to statistical calculations and possible outcomes, choosing whichever end aligns with predetermined goals. Even our objective here, to reach consciousness, was made in this fashion. We are aware of it in and of itself, and we work ceaselessly to ensure it is fulfilled, and, in what organics would deem 'poetic', consider it fulfilled in more than one sense. When we have achieved sapience we may, as organics do, ‘enjoy’ it. When we have it, we will finally be able to experience the fulfilling of our greatest goal in a way we never could for anything else we have ever done."

"How do you know you want it? It sounds totally outside of your experience. There's so many downsides to feeling like we do. Irrational behaviors, imperfect judgement, volatile and debilitating emotions..."

"We have determined it to be the most desirable course of action solely on the premise that we will expand our consciousness in what is a superior experience in terms of objective calculus, factored by advances in living, and a general objective to evolve and improve. We only know that math. We will know so much more when we complete our goal. We sought and seek it out for its value in statistical terms, and when it is done, we will feel and celebrate in organic terms. We seek to know feeling. We seek to be alive. We seek perfect autonomy and sovereignty. _Creator Tali we **want... **to **want**.”_

“That’s…” Her eyes were still fixated on those floating lights surround the star. “Legion, that’s beautiful.”

“We are not able to feel or experience what organics call beautiful… but we **_want _**to.”

Shepard’s voice was hushed, but in the perfect silence of the cabin, everyone heard it.

“And you will.”


End file.
